


Like Ghosts in the Snow

by notesfromjasey



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Art Student!Gerard, FOB, Ghosts, I'm only tagging major character death because they turn undead....., M/M, MCR, Nanowrimo Project, Night Terrors, Paranormal, Vampire!Pete, Vampires, also with some bullets aesthetic mixed in, for fall out boy i imagined them kinda post from under the cork tree, frank kind of passes out a lot in earlier chapters, i wrote this picturing everyone in the revenge phase basically, mikey is a vampire fanatic, oh man HERE WE GO, patrick stump being wholesome, the slowest burn, three cheers for sweet revenge aesthetic, vampire!Gerard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:23:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21541300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notesfromjasey/pseuds/notesfromjasey
Summary: In the dismal state of New Jersey, vampires have been hiding in wait, an entire kingdom remaining mostly hidden from the public eye.  Frank Iero is cursed with horrible nightmares that seem to be premonitions, and finds that he has an unmistakable connection with the loner art student Gerard Way - who gets bitten by a high ranking vampire. Now that Gerard is turned, things are becoming more dangerous and complicated than anyone involved could've ever anticipated. Will Frank and Gerard ever live normal lives? Or will Jersey swallow them whole?
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way, Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	1. Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For the Two of Us

**Author's Note:**

> DID Y'ALL HEAR THAT MCR IS FINALLY BACK??  
> In honor of the reunion, I've decided to come out of the woodwork and post this! I wrote this five years ago for NaNoWriMo, but never posted it. That means that I have 50k words of this pre-written, so this fic will have much more frequent updates! I absolutely promise that I'm still working on all of my other fics as we speak - I haven't given up on them.  
> This is honestly my first time heavily editing anything, so I hope this isn't TOO awful.  
> Comments, kudos, and constructive feedback fuel my will to live!!!
> 
> Warning: PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME READING THIS IF YOU ARE OPPOSED TO FRERARD. If you don't like it, don't read it - simple as that. This fic is for entertainment purposes only, and isn't meant to be taken more seriously than that.

A shitty little town in New Jersey never held much promise for Gerard, and he knew it. Probably from the minute he was born, he thought. Belleville reeked of death and cheap gas, of secrets and the worst kind of nights. Even his house looked like all of the weird crap from New Jersey was crammed into it. It never seemed to be lit up quite right, and his brother was always hunched over just a bit, his glasses too far down on his nose. Gerard almost never left his house, and saw no real reason to at all. What was the point? In the past two years, people living there had discovered four dead bodies only blocks away from his house. Pair that concept with a protective mother and you’ve got a shitty situation for any kid. You couldn’t really go out and play like the kids you saw on television that you were forced to watch every day because there was nothing else to do. Everyone in Jersey seemed to be ok with essentially being trapped in their homes.  
But Gerard knew he wasn’t that desperate to get out and see what was beyond New Jersey. Mix tapes full of gorgeous music were littered around the floor in his room, occasionally lit up by a shred of sunlight coming in through the aged window. Seemingly endless bales of bleach white paper were stacked, littered, and crumpled up in Gerard’s room. Ink had splattered all over his god forsaken excuse for a desk. The pages had pitch black borders of all shapes and sizes scattered across them, and Gerard loved nothing more than to keep filling them with all of the creatures, characters, and gruesome comic book concepts that his mind could come up with. He didn’t make normal comics. These comics were Gerard comics. Glaring, sharp artwork partnered up with grisly horror story plots. They were beautiful in their own dark little ways.  
Gerard was many things, but normal wasn’t ever going to be one of them. Not as long as he was living in this tiny, shit stained town he called home for all of his confusing, upsetting, dark life. One could say that Gerard lived through his brother Mikey, since Gerard’s few friends formed connections with him through Mikey. Mikey would always be more outgoing than Gerard, although not by much.

Things in Gerard’s dark and damp life got a little brighter when a small, excited, angel-faced boy came into it.  
Nothing at all was supposed to come out of their eventual friendship.  
Everything was supposed to pass. Gerard was supposed to stop keeping in contact with the friends he made through his brother and become a total hermit, only focusing on the macabre and his comic books. That was all. His life was destined to be as dark, uneventful, rainy, bleak, boring, and horribly sane as possible, just like the shit town he lived in in a dusty little corner of New Jersey that nobody bothered to think twice about.  
That was all.  
Nothing was supposed to happen. At all.

But when Frank turned and gave Gerard that first, tiny, bright smile, Gerard was thrown for a loop. Suddenly, the air had a different vibe consuming it.  
Frank was suddenly the bright spot in New Jersey. Brighter than the crazy, heated light in Gerard’s mother’s bathroom that could fry you in two seconds. Brighter than the annoying ray of weak sunlight that always rose Gerard out of his disturbed slumber at night. Brighter than anything he had ever dared to hope for his future.  
And he had no idea about what his future would hold - all of the heavenly, amazing, joyful light, and all the pitch black, bottomless darkness.

_

Frank Iero had just awakened from his nightmare again that morning. It was the same dream, a dark entity clinging onto him for dear life while sharp slivers of something stabbed into his neck, ripping apart the tendons, veins, and arteries inside, killing him instantly, without having any chance at all to fight back. In the dream, he was always wearing an eyeball white shirt and pants, with a skinny black tie resting in the middle of his chest. His own blood would spray and splatter and drip all over his odd white attire, turning it all kinds of shades of black, maroon and pink. Sometimes he wouldn’t feel a thing while the nightmare fed off of him alive, and other times he would wake himself up in a jolt, writhing and screaming in pain. This always resulted one of his family members rushing to his room, although they eventually learned that these “night terrors” were a routine, harmless thing. Sometimes they wouldn’t even come at all, no matter how much Frank wished they would. But more than the strange pain, Frank wondered why these nightmares kept happening, over and over, sometimes for several nights in a row.  
He figured he should have been used to all of it by now. He figured that he went throughout his days pretty normally, and that no one could obviously tell that he suffered from these horrible nightmares so often. Maybe he was too obsessed with horror movies? Maybe that was the reason he kept having these weird nightmares. Yeah, it _definitely_ had to be that. Nevermind that he had a sinking feeling that that was completely wrong.

Frank rose up from his rumpled up twin size bed to look at himself in the mirror. His hair was shaved on one side, almost down to a buzz cut and he had one fell swoop of hair that covered his eyes and framed the left side of his face expertly, even though it wasn’t officially washed, styled, and dripping with hair gel yet. His beaten up acoustic guitar sat in the corner, complete with his crappy silver capo stuck on the second fret. He was supposed to hang out with Mikey today at his place. 

Mikey was, for lack of a better term, a weird kid.  
Not that Frank wasn’t strange himself. He wasn’t exactly average, standing at four feet and nine inches, plugs stretching his ears and obsessed with the punk scene and music in general. Having an almost unhealthy obsession with horror movies and creepy stuff that made most people’s stomachs turn didn’t earn him any normalcy points either. Shit, his fucking birthday fell on Halloween.  
But Mikey was different, that was for sure. He was a touch more quiet than the other kids around when they were both in high school. He always wore his glasses too far down his nose, so he had to hold his head up higher to see right (which made Frank laugh every time). His knees were bent in a somewhat awkward position, making his stance a little off centered.  
His mixtapes he shared with Frank were nothing short of phenomenal, however. He was also obsessed with vampires.

So when Mikey made plans with Frank to go hang at his place today with his brother, Frank was kind of excited to meet Mikey Way’s brother. Honestly, Frank didn’t know what exactly to expect. Would Mikey’s brother be cooler than him? Would he be the exact same, or maybe worse?  
_Not that that would be a horrible thing,_ Frank thought to himself as he trudged over to his closet to grab his tattered, ugly green towel to head over to the bathroom to take a much needed shower. Mikey was a good guy. His brother was probably the same way. Frank passed by another mirror after he greeted his mom good morning and locked the creaky bathroom door behind him. His eyes were a little bloodshot from staying up late last night, practicing on another rad riff for an upcoming band opportunity that he was almost sure he was going to land. He took his hand and tugged down on the flesh of his cheek, making his face look as if it were melting, punk rock style. He stuck out his tongue a bit for good measure before he turned and twisted the rusting metal knobs to start the cascade of steamy water. Sure enough, as he was bathing, the soap got in his eyes and stung like a bitch. He cursed pretty loudly, kind of hunching over while he heard someone knock at the door.

“Uh, can you wait a sec?” He answered without bothering to ask who it was, groaning and trying to wipe the stinging pain away from his eyes.

“It’s me dude,” Mikey’s voice answered. His voice was so soft and meek that it barely made it through the door and the booming sound of the falling water. 

“Oh, uh, shit, give me a second man,” Frank answered again, scrambling to rinse the rest of the water from his hair. 

“My mom’s outside waiting in the car,” Mikey added, his tone a little stressed.

“Fuck. Really? I need a few,” Frank grumbled, throwing his old sleep shirt back on and wrapping the towel around his middle to go outside. 

Out of nowhere, Frank got a nudge of instinct to look at himself in the mirror again.  
It was only for a second.  
Blood. Dark, passionate red dripping down his face, covering his neck and drenching the rest of his face.  
He dropped everything, losing his balance as he let out a frightened scream and fell ass first onto the floor. 

“Whoa, bro, you ok?” Mikey asked, knocking on the door again. Frank wanted to say _Christ, Mikes, just give me a second and stop shitting yourself,_ but he figured he couldn’t really say that when he was about to do the same thing himself. Without a word, Frank scrambled back up to his feet, almost slipping as he groped at his face, trying to see if deep red would come off of it and onto his palm.  
No such luck. Frank looked in the mirror again and saw that he was as clean as ever.  
What the fuck had just happened?  
He slapped his face a few more times for good measure, blinking his eyes and scrunching them closed over and over again, his lips parted.

“Uh, dude, you kind of need to hurry,” Mikey said again. Still not answering, Frank opened the door and rushed into his room, realizing he’d forgotten his towel to cover himself. He yanked on the first pair of dark blue skinny jeans and stepped into his sneakers, not bothering to tie them. 

“Sorry,” Frank muttered, grabbing his case that cradled his acoustic guitar inside of its velvety rib cage. 

“All good, dude,” Mikey answered, shoving Frank’s shoulder blade a bit. At first the push freaked Frank out a bit, but he hid it quick, laughing it off as he drug his guitar into the backseat of Mikey’s mom’s car. He remembered in that split second that he was supposed to keep up the mask that hid how much the demons haunted him.

“Frank?” Mikey’s mom’s voice sounded, startling Frank out of his thoughts. 

“Oh, uh, sorry, yeah?” Frank answered.

“I was asking you if you met Mikey’s brother, Gerard yet,” she asked, her fried blond hair staying in single position as she moved her head. 

“No, actually, that was supposed to be happening today and stuff,” Frank answered. He hated how his voice still wasn’t back to normal after what had happened in his bathroom just moments before. 

“Well I hope you boys will be hungry soon enough. I got a ton of pizza bagels ready to go in the freezer.”

“Mom, oh my god,” Mikey sighed, putting one hand on his face and shaking his head a bit, despite there being a tiny smile on his face. They were all at that awkward age of being out of high school, yet still unable to snag a job to afford a car and a place to live by themselves. Motherly instincts and habits were obviously still going strong. 

“Oh man, I am _starving_ ,” Frank expressed, a goofy smile on his face plastered on just to bug Mikey a little bit more. 

“Alright, dude,” Mikey answered in a lazy sarcastic tone.

Frank didn’t mind the pizza bagels. He didn’t mind needing a ride from his friend’s mom to and back. Getting out of the house and focusing on better, more positive things was better than laying on his small bed all day, dedicating too much time to the oddities that were his nightmares and the phantom blood on his face. Maybe even devoting his thoughts to the one that got away, Jamia, all at the same time. It was all too much. As much as staying home had its own dark appeal, Frank needed to get away and he knew it. Frank got so lost in his odd thoughts that he didn’t even notice the car rolling up into the driveway, jolting a bit. 

“Alright everyone, out, out, out,” Mikey’s mom called out. Frank scrambled to get out of the car, swinging the case that held his acoustic onto his back. Frank looked up at the house that Mikey called home and wasn’t shocked, or disappointed to say the least. It was shabby. It was a dead tan color. It was small, but he knew somehow that it must have been bigger on the inside. The lawn outside in the front yard was so dead the long gone grass blades were white as paper. An old rocking swing chair was sitting on the far right of the porch, old and brown. Its only occupant was a small black cat, who was napping peacefully. Dead leaves of all neutral colors were scattered everywhere. The house was only a step away from looking deserted.  
A brief thought that was _of course Mikey would live here_ dashed across Frank’s mind for a second before he walked onto the porch and was greeted harshly by the cat. Just moments before, it was off in a peaceful dream land, but now it cursed Frank with multiple hisses and high-pitched meows and growls. Its black fur puffed up into a menacing cotton ball, and its teeth were displayed without fear. Of course, its ears were folded back as far as possible.  
Frank stood frozen for a bit.

“Oh, Macy, stop that,” Mikey’s mom scolded, waving the crazed cat away while she focused on unlocking the door. 

“Uh…” Frank muttered, unsure of what to do. Before he knew it, Frank had entered the Way household and was faced with dim lighting and furniture that was as old and shabby as the exterior of the house it sat in. Seriously. It was like the light had been sucked out of it by some unknown, creepy force, leaving a weird sepia tone to everything. _Of course Mikey Way would live here._  
“That was weird. Macy does not usually react like that to new people. She just books it somewhere else,” Mikey pondered out loud. 

“It’s all good,” Frank assured, wanting to drop the subject as soon as possible. He set down his case next to the couch that looked like it belonged to some old grandma (plastic cover included) and turned his head to the sound of a door opening down the hall. 

A boy’s head peeked out of the crack. Frank noted right away that his hair was raven black, and matted into some odd shape that made it look like he hadn’t seen a shower in weeks. His eyes gave the appearance of being a bit sunken into his skull that had a jawline that could cut anyone in half. The true hazel of his eyes were deep and sad. His lips were cracked and way more pale than they should have been. He looked like he hadn’t slept in years. He looked depressed, exhausted. There was a pinprick of light in his eyes, however. He didn’t stand tall, his posture was about as sunken as his brother’s.  
But was this really Mikey’s brother?

“Gerard, come say hi to Frank,” Mikey prompted, waving his hand towards Gerard in a come hither gesture.  


“Oh, uh, hey,” Gerard called out, making eye contact with Frank. 

“Hey!” Frank smiled as he called out his greeting a little too loudly and made his smile a little too bright. He immediately scolded himself for being overzealous. Gerard stood there for a bit, keeping his strange eyes focused on Frank. He drug out a smile to stretch on his lips, holding up his hand in a weak wave. Frank tried to return the gesture but felt a little nervous doing so. Everything seemed to go quiet around them in that moment. Their eyes were trained expertly on each other, almost as if they had done this a million times before, in a million different life times, and had known the maps of each other’s faces so well. The comfortable feeling of being familiar hit Frank like a goddamn truck. Frank planned on turning away way sooner than this. He managed to turn back to the table where Mikey was cleaning his glasses with the hem of his shirt. Frank knew better than the sky was blue that Gerard still hadn’t retreated back into his room, and was still standing there in the doorway, eyes fixed on him. This didn’t bother Frank in the slightest - it made him feel better than he had ever been. All of it, every single second of their first encounter was unmistakably familiar. Frank felt like he had been waiting to meet Gerard. This, on top of everything that had happened in his recurring nightmares and the phantom blood on his face, should have had him cracking at any moment under the immense confusion and pressure. Or at least a little pissed off. The amount of calm he felt was staggering. It was enchanting. Almost like the trials of the early day had all been solved - and his savior was Mikey’s brother, the unlikely Gerard Way. 

Christ. What was Frank thinking? Gerard wasn’t any magical problem solver. He was Mikey’s introverted brother (that had an obsession with comic books, if Frank remembered Mikey’s description correctly). Frank was all fucked up today anyway. It all made sense. The sense of familiarity, however overwhelming and how real it all seemed, was probably just a fluke. Possibly, Frank was finally going nuts. 

A burning hot plate slid against his wrist in the next moment, snapping him out of his head.  
He snatched his hand away, turning a bit in his chair and biting his lip as he hissed out a curse. 

“Gerard! Do you want some food, honey?” Mikey’s mom called out, moving past Frank and heading over towards Gerard’s closed door and knocking three times on it, waiting for an answer. 

“Can you bring it in here?” Gerard’s muffled, cigarette stained voice sounded through the door. 

“No, you need to come out here and socialize,” Mikey’s mom answered back in an annoyed tone. “It’s not going to kill you, come on, I made your favorite.”

“…Alright.” Gerard answered.

Satisfied, Mikey’s mom walked back into the kitchen, getting to work on sorting through the mail. 

“That’s Gerard,” she muttered in a tone that made Frank think she was about to shrug her shoulders as punctuation. Down the hallway, Gerard’s door creaked back open, Gerard’s footsteps creeping slowly towards the kitchen. Frank’s head was spinning. This wasn’t fair, or normal, but just knowing Gerard was there made Frank feel confused and relieved at the same time. Would it have killed Gerard to just give Frank a little more time to process these weird feelings, to let him try to convince himself that all of this was just in his fucked up head? Everything was happening at once until -  
An intense wave of dizziness hit Frank. Then, the entire world around him melted into black.  
He hit the floor.


	2. Vampires Will Never Hurt You

In New Jersey, in its formative days and even into the most modern years, Vampires weren't as much of a secret as the government, citizens, or simple skeptics wanted them to be. They were out there. There were those who figured that the blood sucking creatures were already living among the masses, living quietly and masking themselves behind mysterious murders and stray bodies lining the bottom of city rivers. Some others figured that they were all living like savages in the forest, killing game and living off of rats in the sewers while they prowled the residential streets at night (Why else would there be such an early curfew? Never mind the gangs, those were all cover ups anyway, didn’t everyone _know that?_ ). 

Regardless, New Jersey was absolutely crawling with them.  
And Gerard had the pleasure of hearing constantly about it through his brother Mikey.   
Endless lectures and lessons about the creatures, always beginning with “I’m telling you bro, they’re _everywhere_ ,” inspired Gerard only in the field of expressing his grotesque image of them in his comics and drawings. He believed his brother. How could he not? All of the headlines and incredulous newscasters proclaimed that Vampires, at best, were nothing but a myth, and humans have always been behind the mysterious deaths of New Jersey - but Gerard and Mikey knew better.   
“I mean, look at this place,” Gerard muttered one rainy afternoon after another humiliating day in high school as his brother sat beside him and watched Gerard draw his umpteenth vampire. “I’ll never tell you that you’re wrong about this, Mikey. Jersey’s a fucking cesspit. And people actually wanna say that vampires couldn’t possibly exist here,” Gerard scoffed, adding shine to the vampire's hair. 

“Like I said before, remember Duncan-”

“I know, Mikey, I know,” Gerard confirmed, waving away the story about how this one kid they knew, Duncan, had been bitten by one of New Jersey’s yet to be named Vampires and escaped into the mountains, never to be heard from again. Gerard wasn’t in the mood that day to hear the story again. He could recite the story backwards and forwards. The one witness who saw Duncan get tackled to the ground by some gangly creature and get bitten directly on the neck was found in a hotel room, hung by an electrical cord from the shower head. Some people had praised him as a god. Others sent him photos of him sitting in his living room window, captioned by gruesome notes about how his blood will also run down the streets along with Duncan’s.  
Coming out as a believer was risky. Extremely risky. Jumping out of a plane with a faulty parachute was probably safer. The only witnesses to Gerard and Mikey’s conversations were Gerard’s bedroom walls and some of Mikey’s close friends that were somehow trustworthy, since they obviously weren’t about to turn Mikey in for it. Mikey would always be the one who talked about Vampires. Gerard would always be the one who would draw them, in all shapes and sizes.  
_

Gerard kept his eyes on Frank as he lay sleeping on the couch.  
But was he really sleeping? Gerard wasn’t sure. His eyes were shut together a little too tight, and his eyebrows were knit together, as if he had been dreaming about something perplexing. His mom’s voice had been going on and on in the background, only consisting of “We need to get him home! I can’t have you kids fainting, this is too much,” among other insecurities. 

“Mom, I just think he’s had a tough morning,” Mikey pleaded. He didn’t need word getting around that Frank had fallen unconscious during his first visit to the infamous Way home.

“What makes you say that?” Mikey’s mom asked, her voice dripping with incredulity. 

“When I went inside his house to get him, I heard him scream in the bathroom - then I think I heard him fall pretty hard. Or something scared him, maybe there was a bug or something, I don’t know, he didn’t tell me - but I’m sure it has to do with that.”

“Mikey, honey, I don’t think Frank would keel over from just slipping in the bathroom, bugs or no bugs. He’s not on drugs, is he?”

“Really, mom? Also, you did hear him say he was starving.”

“I guess I can’t fight you on that one. I don’t know this kid. Who knows how long it’s been since he’s eaten?” Donna Way pondered.

“Let’s just let him wake up on his own,” Mikey said right before Gerard got up and started shaking Frank’s shoulder a bit. “Dude, I just said-”

“Come on. Wake up, Frank,” Gerard almost whispered, still keeping his hand on Frank’s shoulder.   
This method unlocked Frank’s consciousness within moments.

“Frank, just get back to sleep if you need to. The food will still be here and everything,” Mikey bargained with Frank, almost standing up himself to prevent Frank from moving around too soon.

“Gerard, be careful!” Donna Way scolded, pushing a groaning Frank back down on the couch lightly herself. 

“No, ma'am,” Frank mumbled, eyes scrunched shut even more, as if he had a screaming headache. “Gerard was right. I need to get up,” Frank confirmed, sitting up and rubbing his head.   
Gerard felt an overwhelming sense of calm now that Frank was awake, and even smiled a bit, just in time for Frank to catch it.   
“Get the man some food,” Mikey commanded Gerard. “I’ll help him up.”   
“Guys, come on. I’m fine, I’m fine,” Frank insisted, standing right up on his own. He rubbed his head a few more times, trying to fix his hair in the process. His eyes squeezed shut and flared open a few more times. Gerard studied Frank’s hairstyle, and adored how the little flick of hair that framed the side of Frank’s face looked as if it was drawn on with a fine ink pen. Frank was a beautiful creature to behold. Although small for his gender and age, Gerard firmly believed that Frank was a walking symphony. Every part of him complimented the next part, in a beautiful and gritty way. Frank started walking away towards the table, and Gerard watched him go, almost like a lost puppy - The fuck? What was Gerard thinking? Maybe he was just inspired. Yeah, that was it. 

Inspired. Frank was an art piece that captured Gerard’s attention right away, and somehow sparked that little flicker of motivation to create inside. But this wasn’t any ordinary inspiration. Drawing just wouldn’t cut it this time. If Gerard was to use this odd inspiration and channel it into yet another drawing, he could already see that the only art that would come out of his hand would be resembling Frank.   
Unfortunately, Gerard couldn’t keep up with Frank as he moved with a quick pace throughout the kitchen. He seemed to want to avoid Gerard at all costs, if Gerard looked at it realistically.  
 _No, wait. You’re overthinking,_ Gerard told himself. He looked towards Frank one more time, regret poking at his heart before he decided it was time to go back into his room, not disturbing anyone, not stalking the guest. He needed to finish up on that comic he had promised his brother, anyway. Of course, it was about vampires.

Gerard picked up a few pizza bagels onto a napkin, and escaped back to his room, swinging the door towards the latch, trusting that it would close on its own. There was one, beat up pixar lamp on his desk, which only added to the gloominess instead of brightening up the place. The half window on the other wall was close to useless, of course. He took a bite of one greasy pizza bagel and snatched up a piece of blank paper from the side of his desk, trying to find his favorite pen through the mess. This specific pen had the most jet black ink he’d ever seen in his whole career of artistry, and flowed like a dream. It was perfect for his goal. First, that little perfect swipe of hair that curled up just a bit to frame his eye and then -  
 _Fuck,_ Gerard cursed to himself, shoving the paper aside. What he had drawn looked like the lamest curly-q, and nothing like what he wanted. _Wrong. Incorrect. Stupid._

“What’s up?” Frank’s voice sounded suddenly before his fist landed on Gerard’s shoulder lightly. He didn’t even realize that Mikey and Frank had even entered his room at all. He was so lost in thought, he never even heard the door open. Maybe he left it slightly ajar by accident?

“Uh,” Gerard answered at first, his eyes shooting over to the just started portrait of Frank. He snatched up the unfinished drawing in his thin fingers and smashed it into his palm, crumpling it up in no time flat. He considered ripping it apart but thought twice. That would probably make him seem more suspicious. “Fuckin’ drawin’,” Gerard answered. It was his lazy signature phrase whenever Mikey or anyone asked what he was doing. 

“What are you fuckin’ drawin’?” Frank asked, sarcasm thick in his voice as he turned around and smirked at Gerard. 

_Totally not you._ “Some Vampires,” Gerard answered, finally getting the idea to start searching through his stacks of unfinished and finished comics alike to try and find the one he was working on for Mikey. It was noticeable that Frank bristled at that statement. 

“Oh,” Frank said, turning back to Mikey who was sifting through Gerard’s mixtapes on his coffee stained carpet. “So you guys think Vampires are the real deal huh? Cool. I think so too,” Frank prompted, looking up at Mikey and arching his eyebrows a few times. Huh, that was weird. Frank didn’t look too excited just a split second ago. 

“Yeah dude, I kind of thought that would’ve been obvious by now,” Mikey laughed, pointing at Gerard. “Doesn’t he look like one?” Mikey joked, a smile stretching his lips as he giggled.

“Oh my god, don’t even talk about that,” Gerard waved his hand, turning his back to focus on finding the vampire comic again. His efforts provided the sketches he sought for. He hadn’t even inked anything yet.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Frank said, shaking his head. “All these mixtapes. All of these mixtapes, and not one of them has Black Flag on it. I expected more from Mikey Way’s brother!” Frank laughed, picking up one mixtape and waving it in Mikey’s face.

“That’s not on me, dude,” Mikey countered, pointing towards Gerard, who was currently hunched over his drawings. “He’s the one who made all of those.”

“And since you didn’t look hard enough, the one over by the bookcase _does_ have Black Flag on it,” Gerard corrected, only moving his eyes over to the window to make it look like he wasn’t focusing on Frank. Somehow, it was already getting dark outside and the streetlights burned nice and bright, all in a row. How the hell did that happen?

Frank didn’t answer. This only made him more intriguing. Gulping, Gerard swiveled around in his chair and pursued him. “So uh,… yeah, Mikey. You never really told me about Frank before,” Gerard mentioned, trying to use his most casual tone. He was pretty sure he failed, but how could he not? He had to get to the bottom of this… whatever it was.

“Oh, uh, I didn’t? I could have sworn to you I did. You don’t remember, I told you he was coming here on Monday,” Mikey countered, shrugging his shoulders. Mission failed. Now Gerard just looked like some weird asshole. He knew he should drop all of this now. There was no point to keep pursuing this, no matter how strained the atmosphere between Frank and himself was, no matter how freaky he may have seemed, Frank was acting freakier after all. At least Gerard didn’t faint on anybody yet. Gerard finally decided to keep his eyes trained right on Frank, hopefully binding them together for good this time. Oh yeah. Frank felt that for sure. Gerard could tell, Frank’s face flushed a bit and he looked almost angry, but definitely nervous, beyond a doubt. 

“Tell me about yourself,” Gerard prompted, spinning his favorite pen around in his hand. 

“Depends on what you want to know,” Frank answered. His lip ring flicked up a little bit as his mouth actually turned up into a smile. A small chill ran down Gerard’s spine. His forehead felt hot.

“Everything,” Gerard answered, not even thinking. 

“Am I interrupting something?” Mikey spoke out loud, breaking the all too temporary spell that had been cast between Gerard and Frank in that instant. The room suddenly seemed much louder. “He’s usually not like this,” Mikey pointed out to Frank, shaking his head a bit and trying to laugh it off. Gerard felt a little embarrassed, but he had been through too many similar incidents for it to really bother him anymore. He was used to being the weird kid - and was glad that he wasn’t the only one in the room at the moment.

“I don’t mind,” Frank answered, not taking his eyes off of Gerard. “Uh, well, I have nightmares almost every night and… they’re always about… what I think is a vampire. You know, attacking me. And I’m wearing this weird white suit. There’s just, blood everywhere, and I really don’t know how to make it stop,” Frank confessed. The air exploded into silence around them. It was fair to say that Mikey was freaked out pretty badly. Gerard’s interest increased by endless bounds. His eyes couldn’t be ripped off of Frank for anything in the world.

“What else?” Gerard asked, not moving from his spot on his swivel chair. Frank also remained in his same position, his body obviously tense and stiff. Neither of them looked like they dared to breathe, let alone move.

“There was blood in the mirror. This morning, I mean, shit, I mean there was blood on me. On my face, all over my face, and it was everywhere, and I kind of fell down on my ass and I freaked Mikey out, I think,” Frank continued, swiping his glance over to Mikey who was just sitting there with his mouth agape in a slight horror. It was blatantly obvious that Mikey wanted to leave as his body inched closer and closer to the door.

“Frank,” Gerard whispered, his voice quiet with terror. “Blood? So did it look like you were already bitten?”

“Uh, no. I mean, I couldn’t tell. The blood was just everywhere.”

“I’m sorry,” Gerard whispered, dropping his shoulders a bit. It was only them in the world now. The number of times either of them blinked put together could’ve been counted on one hand.

“Uh, what time do you have to get back? I have to let my mom know dude,” Mikey pointed out, his words awkward and horribly out of place. He wanted Frank out of there. All of them in Gerard’s dark room knew it. Frank took a few seconds longer than he should have to answer him. 

“Seven,” he said, still keeping his eyes on Gerard. “How do I make them stop?” His voice almost broke with how pained his question was. Mikey finally left the room, making a show of it by almost tripping over his own feet. The door shut behind him. It was truly only them now. “What are you?” Frank asked Gerard, his voice barely raised above a breath. It was a miracle that Gerard had heard him speak at all.

“I should be asking you that,” Gerard deflected. “Don’t you think we should start at the beginning?” 

“I thought this was the beginning,” Frank answered Gerard, shrugging his shoulders and pursing his lips together to the side. “This is pretty weird, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Gerard answered, the tone of his voice low with purpose. “I do. It is weird. I mean this, this is weird.”

“Especially since you never leave the house.”

“How did you know?” Gerard asked, cocking his head to the side. 

“I would’ve felt you,” Frank answered in one fell swoop, his hand flying up to cover his mouth in a split second. 

“What do you mean?” Gerard asked. It certainly couldn’t have gotten any stranger than this. Gerard felt a disarming blend of frightening confusion and an unmistakable calm being this close to Frank for more than a few moments. He had never felt this way before, with anyone or about anything. The feeling was so alien, yet Gerard knew in his gut that it was right. That it was right to be here with Frank, to finally stay in each other’s presence. 

“Nothing,” Frank answered briskly, swinging his guitar case back onto his shoulder, hitting his back with a low thump as he hightailed it for Gerard’s door. He almost ran into it, just barely catching the brass doorknob in his small hands, turning it and escaping. Gerard didn’t even have enough time to catch his shoulder, didn’t even have enough time at all to try to beg him to stay. Or demand that he stay. Something. Anything but Frank’s unfortunate departure. Gerard looked over at his digital clock that declared the time in boring red digital numbers. It was almost three hours before Frank was supposed to go home.   
Damn it. 

Gerard finally moved from his concrete position that Frank had frozen him in, and swiped a single hand through his pitch black greasy hair. His eyes cast down to the floor, hovering over the space that Frank was sitting in just moments ago. The shitty, ugly carpet was still flat were Frank had been sitting as he admitted his secret sufferings to Gerard. 

Could he still change this? Could he get out of his shabby throne right now and run out into the driveway, or the kitchen, or wherever Frank was to try and get answers? Or would he keep sitting here, in this room, staring endlessly at his drawings that were destined to never see a publishing agent’s desk? Stuck here, forever. Never changing anything. Only leaving to go to his classes at art school, smoking when he wasn’t supposed to, and coming back to his own little New Jersey in his room. A pile of shit.  
Today was different. Today meant something. Today was not going to be a pile of shit that he would just let pass by.

Gerard shot out of his chair, flinging his door open and charged out into the kitchen, having to hold himself back from screaming out his question. “Where’s Frank? He, uh, left something in my room,” he called out. Nobody answered him. The house was empty. Mikey, his mom, and Frank had all already left. Gerard confirmed it by looking out in the driveway to find it empty. 

His chance had slipped right out of his fingers before he even knew it existed before him. He was still standing there at the window, staring at the dead concrete in the driveway. It wouldn’t be filled any time soon, and Gerard had to get going so he could catch the bus to take him to his art school evening classes. 

He turned away from the window, heading back to the open prison that was his room. He felt devastated. Like he was an idiot for letting the chance slip by him, for not forcing Frank to stay. He was consumed by that awful, lost feeling that one does when they know they won’t see another person ever again.

Being around Frank felt more than natural. It felt like Gerard had been waiting for Frank for a while now. Him and his soft face, with the unique and adorable curl of hair that framed his face in that beautiful way. The way his eyes were so gentle, but still pierced right through your fucking soul. He didn’t deserve those nightmares. Gerard sat back down in his swivel chair, surrounded by his own drawings. Damn, am I ever going to finish that thing for Mikey?

-  
Gerard had finally gotten around to actually beefing up a story line for the comic he had intended on finishing for Mikey, finally able to ignore Mikey and Donna’s conversations for once. They had come back from dropping off Frank rather quickly. He was still focusing on his creepy storyline when his alarm to get up and get dressed for art school went off. He cursed under his breath, taking the stray piece of paper he had been accidentally sketching on and crumpling it up in his fist, tossing it towards his wastebasket and missing, like he did nearly every other time he tried to do it. 

Gerard got up and changed out of his black shirt and his red plaid boxers into his dark blue coat, jeans, and ratty converse, wrapping his striped scarf around his neck and fluffing up his hair a bit. The circles under his eyes would always be there, no matter how much sleep he got. He grabbed his bag, stuffed some of the papers of the comic he was drawing for Mikey inside of it, clicked it closed and headed outside to the bus stop to lean up against the pole and take out a cigarette after saying goodbye to his mom and Mikey. He tapped his foot against the sidewalk in protest of how freezing it was outside. He drew out his lighter from his pocket, yellow and transparent, flicking it into a flame to set against the tip of his cancer stick. He inhaled, taking a sweet long drag and letting it out into the freezing air. His exhale was a bit shaky, and rightfully so after the Frank experience. The bus was supposed to be here in ten minutes, but time seemed to trudge along. Gerard shut his eyes, trying to see anything in his mind’s eye but Frank. Or the lovely swipe of Frank’s hair that framed the side of his eye. Or trying to picture Frank’s nightmares that he spoken about with a terrible, raw, hopeless fear. Maybe Gerard would even end up drawing them to pass the time in class. That would be a surefire thing to freak out his only friends in class for good, never mind the sleepy, lazy sketches of disembodied werewolves and vampires. 

Gerard wondered for a bit why Frank was dreaming of being attacked by vampires specifically while the bus rolled up to his stop,the brakes screeching at an ungodly pitch. Gerard put the silver coins into the grimy slot and headed towards the back of the bus, where his only company was a Panda Express bag that someone had abandoned. The bus driver didn’t give a shit if he smoked while on board or not, he had known Gerard for several years now - one of the few benefits of living in a small town. The bus took off, making Gerard lean dangerously forward in his seat. He kept his eyes trained on the shitty view outside of the window that was covered in the dried up old sweat of every hobo that had fallen asleep on it. Perfect way to see New Jersey.

Why did Frank had to leave so suddenly? Things were just getting started, they had both agreed that something strange was going on between them. While Gerard was still mulling over these thoughts. the bus pulled over to a stop and let a single passenger on. Although the passenger’s face was mostly covered up with his red hoodie, Gerard could tell that he was only a little older than himself, and his hair hung over his right eye in one fell swoop. His walk was unnaturally smooth, almost like he was floating. His lips were full and his skin was tan. His eyes, however, were black. They only had a hint of shine to them. He looked directly at Gerard once, his gaze hard with intent, making time seemed to linger slower than it ever should have. Gerard felt a stab of dread and fear mixed together deep in his chest, and actually clutched it once the dark stranger had found a seat. The stranger was wearing converse and jeans, and kept his hood up to keep most of his face hidden. He sat still. Eerily still. It didn’t even look like his shoulders or his chest were rising up as he inhaled, if he even was. The jolt off the accelerating bus didn’t even phase him one bit.

What a pansy Gerard was. Jersey had taught him better than to be scared shitless over a guy in a hoodie that hadn’t even said a word to anyone yet. Maybe hadn’t even breathed yet. Gerard swallowed his nerves and changed his sitting position, digging through his bag for his cd player and his headphones. He needed to be distracted right now. Gerard wished more than anything that he could bust out a couple of quick stress sketches. Maybe distressed scrawls of Frank’s hairstyle, or another vampire to add to his storyline, or the guy sitting on the opposite side and end of the bus. About the millionth time that Gerard looked back towards the stranger, he gave up on trying to listen to music. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he felt the need to be vigilant.  
Gerard set his gaze over to the freaky passenger once again. He was still sitting in the same position. His hood was still pulled over his face, only leaving his right cheek, nose, and lips uncovered. His hands stayed in his pockets, unmoving as well. Gerard’s stop was the one coming up next. For a moment, Gerard vaguely wondered where this guy’s stop would be. Mine, probably. Gerard rolled his eyes. This wasn’t some horror movie, no matter how much New Jersey resembled one. Vampires and all. 

The maple trees that lined Gerard’s art school came into view. Gerard packed up his stuff and rushed for the bus doors, not wanting to spend another second glancing over at the suspicious guy that continued to scare the living piss out of him. The bus doors swiveled open and Gerard almost fell through them, keeping his lips pressed together in a tight line, so tense that he forgot to watch his step. 

Gerard tripped flat onto his face, scraping up the side of his cheek. A tiny drop of blood left the injury, and as he brought himself back up with a healthy string of curses, he could feel his legs wobble. Embarrassment colored his cheeks, and it only got worse as he felt someone bump right into his shoulder. “Sorry,” Gerard mumbled, looking up at the offender.

The same scary guy from the bus stared straight back at him now, his face in full view, now only simply framed by the red hoodie. Gerard was frozen. The man didn’t answer. He only stared. In fact, his lip curled up a little bit, almost as if in a snarl. His gaze only became darker as the seconds lingered on between them. Gerard wanted to sprint away in a rush of pure, fear loaded adrenaline and throw up his guts onto the sidewalk at the same time.

“Uh, sorry?” Gerard offered again instead.   
The man leaned down and swiped some of Gerard’s dark blood off of the sidewalk. It stained his fingertips. He brought up his fingertip to his mouth and swiped his tongue over the blood, tasting it.  
Now Gerard felt like he was really going to throw up all over the concrete. He ran away towards his art school instead. He felt like there wasn’t even enough time to look back to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The building would soon be encasing his entire being and he would be safe. It would be ok. He was not going to die today. He made it into the building and jerked around to see who was behind him. He was met with empty space.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Gerard cursed out loud, into the empty hallway. ‘Fuck’ echoed and bounced against the white tiles and the tan walls. Gerard then focused on getting to the elevator. He pressed the worn out button that was now unreadable after decades of button pressing and the elevator begin to carry him up. His shoulders were vibrating from the shakes. Would concentrating on his comic while he was technically supposed to be paying attention in class even going to calm him down? His eyes continued to dart around the car as if the creepy guy was right there with him, or like he could drop down from the ceiling any second. Once again, he was only met with emptiness. His floor arrived, and Gerard barreled into his classroom, which was vacant except for his teacher. Surprised, Gerard glanced up at the clock. He was forty minutes early. “Christ,” Gerard cursed as he plopped his ass down into a random desk.

“Something wrong?” His teacher asked, approaching Gerard. She was a nice middle aged woman that wore tie dye shirts that were always about six sizes too big for her. She was something ripped straight out of a high school movie. Before handing over any useful explanations, Gerard swung his bag onto the long studio table and ran his hand through his hair one more time. 

“There was this… creepy guy on the bus. Really freaked me out. And then I fell, and just… everything went to shit, pretty much,” Gerard answered, looking down at the table, not wanting to meet his teacher’s eyes. 

“Gerard, look what happened to your face! And you’re never this early, may I add. Did you forget to set back your clock for daylight saving’s time?”

“No, no, that’s not it,” Gerard waved, his voice kind of hitting that high nasaliness before his mind violently jerked back to Frank. He could have gotten whiplash. Gerard’s art teacher smirked and tilted her head to the side a bit. Her incredulity was clearly apparent.

“Gerard, I don’t even think you’ve spoken so much as two words in class – well, except for when we all discussed gothic art style, but my point remains – it’s not nothing. Something happened to you my dear. Face scratch included.”

Gerard lifted his hand up to his cheek to feel the coagulating blood smudge off onto his fingers, the pain stinging his flesh a bit. 

“Here, let’s get that cleaned up,” Gerard’s art teacher offered, heading back to her wide desk to bring back a band aid and a few antiseptic wipes that came in every first aid kit. Why was she being so nice and acknowledging Gerard’s existence all of a sudden? Obviously. We’re the only two people here.  
Gerard held back his wince as his art teacher cleaned up his cuts and bandaged them up accordingly. 

“So… tell me more about this creepy guy on the bus,” Gerard’s teacher asked. Gerard looked up at the clock. Thirty more minutes until his classmates would start piling into the classroom one by one. 

“To be honest, I’m just going to sound crazy. He wasn’t doing anything. Until… we got off at the same stop,” Gerard admitted, the fear setting in again. It took everything he had to swallow the fear and to not look around the room like he was tweaking out. 

“And?” Gerard’s teacher prompted, looking at him as her eyes widened and her eyebrows began to point downwards. 

“And, uh, well… I fell and he bumped into me, and I was bleeding on the ground, and he kind of just… oh god, he leaned down and touched my blood and, uh. He licked it.”

“Vampire,” Gerard’s teacher breathed, mesmerized by the gruesome story that Gerard had just recounted. 

“No way,” Gerard answered, his tone almost matching his teacher’s.

“Oh, believe me. My cousin got bit by a vampire. I know about these things,” Gerard’s teacher insisted. “You have got to start watching out for yourself, Gerard. Even when you’re coming back here. You hear me?” Gerard’s teacher asked, her voice stern and her eyes pinpointed on him.

“I will,” Gerard answered, wishing fervently that today of all days he had stayed home. Now he felt like the world was spinning around him, not stopping any time soon, only going faster. This was not going to end well, and Gerard could feel it. No wonder everyone wanted to keep their belief in vampires a secret. The danger it carried was so great. And now, Gerard was at risk. 

“Don’t worry now,” Gerard’s teacher hurriedly tried to reach out to pat Gerard on the arm. “I don’t want you to think that you’re going to be turned, dear. You’ll be fine, just remember your common sense and always be aware of your surroundings."

“Thanks,” Gerard answered. He could feel the blood start to drain from his face. If only his brother could be here now. Gerard could only imagine the rainbow of his reactions that would be taking place. Fear, _excitement,_ the endless claims of ‘I told you so,’ the preparations (as if the world were ending right then and there) and hell, maybe even make up a mix right on his notebook paper for the occasion, as if they were celebrating and Gerard wasn't in danger at all. The first student had finally entered the classroom, taking his usual space. 

“And Gerard, honey, just consider this a studio day for yourself. Work on anything you’d like,” Gerard’s teacher pointed out before she walked away back to her own desk, setting up papers that contained her sparse notes on today’s lectures and plans for the class. 

_Jesus. Was that a death sentence? A final goodbye? Please no._ Feeling like a lead brick had been dropped into the cavity of his chest, Gerard decided to take out his unfinished comics. His sketches all looked like meaningless gibberish. He forced himself to drag out his favorite pen that traveled with him to and from art school and made himself keep drawing as if everything was normal, that he had never encountered a possible vampire, and began drawing.

He couldn’t concentrate. Nothing was coming out right, his anatomy was too off, his dialogue was sparse and misplaced, and his vampires and people alike were all starting to look the same. Gerard crumpled up the piece of paper he was uselessly drawing on and tossed it into his bag, almost in anger. He was frustrated, that was for sure. But not enough to become angry. Fear was the dominant emotion in his heart right now. 

Gerard bolted from the safety of the classroom and headed out into the hallway, going too fast to hear any protests against his sudden departure, if there were any. He ran. He ran to get outside, to get to his favorite place to have a smoke or two. No one ever came back there, and he was sure he wouldn’t be found. _By human or vampire. Unless I’m underestimating that._

Gerard ducked under the aged caution tape and set his posture up against the wall, almost collapsing to the ground. A cigarette needed to be between his pale, cracked lips and it needed to be there now. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen if he just stood here, smoking as if everything was normal. As if he didn’t just run out of his classroom in a mad panic. As if right now was the half hour after class he usually took to have a smoke.

Gerard dug for his lighter in his pocket. He pressed his thumb on the spur and flicked it alive, the flame producing a single spark as it burned. His hands shook like an alcoholic's as he lifted the white cigarette to the flame, inhaling as fast as he could. He had to calm his nerves. That was the goal. All he had to do was concentrate on watching the blue tinted smoke waft through the air in front of him as he exhaled, letting the smoke swim in his lungs a bit before he did so. Just take a drag. Inhale. Exhale. Watch the smoke. Don’t think about anything else. Take a drag. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t even look around, don’t even think about the comic being drawn for Mikey that seemed so ominous now. Watch the smoke waft through the first falling specks of snow and-

A rush in the dead foliage next to Gerard. A single chill barely having enough time to race up his spine. An ice cold hand seizing him by his shoulder, yanking him off to the side. Seeing the face of the horrifying guy on the bus. Another ice cold palm slamming on the side of his cheek, pushing it down to expose his neck to the predator. A shell of a scream dying on Gerard’s lips. The snap of his neck cracking. Two knife sharp points ripping into the crook of his neck.

New Jersey, in all its shitty grey glory, spinning around him.

Losing consciousness.

Everything going pitch black.


	3. Drowning Lessons

Frank knew that he couldn’t go back there again.  
He screwed up so much. Today was supposed to be normal, and it just wasn’t, right from the beginning to the end. Even if Frank considered himself a freak because of his sensitivity to ghosts, demons, and evil energy in general, today was supposed to be a normal day. He was just supposed to hang out with the harmless Mikey Way.   
He bid his mom his hellos before retreating back into his room, looking out the window in a slight despair. The sky was just as grey as ever, and rain darkened the clouds above him. He knew he couldn’t go back.

At least, that’s what Frank kept telling himself. Frank tried his best to stay positive most days and take advantage of any healthy vices that he could, but even he couldn’t hide the fact that misery and negativity loved to feast upon him in times like these. There were bound to be more nightmares again tonight. It was as inevitable as breathing. 

Frank drug one hand down his face, desperate to come back down to Earth. He kept trying to find any way to play it off like it really wasn't that big of a deal, but no matter how he looked at it, everything stayed the same. He was the freak in every scenario. Even worse than the antisocial Gerard Way who stayed in his room, happily cooped up and drawing good horror comics. 

Frank went on autopilot to start unpacking his acoustic guitar as he thought about how he told Gerard about his nightmares, and how much pain they caused him. Gerard was only a step ahead of being a complete stranger to Frank. So why did the personal story about his nightmares even fall out of him like that? But Frank knew he couldn’t have stopped it anyway. It was like the words were forcing their way out of Frank’s lips by themselves, wrenching his mouth open and jumping down onto the ground. What’s more, Gerard acted like he _had_ to know, as if they were already best friends and it would’ve been easy to fess up about it all. 

Mikey was obviously super freaked out about the whole exchange. Thinking about it almost made Frank laugh…. If he didn’t already feel so down.  
On the ride back to his house, Mikey awkwardly tried to make conversation, but resorted again and again to pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. His nervous tactic. Frank felt horrible for screwing everything up. And now Mikey was going to go back to his house, back to Gerard’s little private hovel and recount about how fucking _weird_ Frank had been, and didn’t he think it was weird too, but more importantly, why did Gerard act more or less the same way?

Now Frank started to really think. If Frank refused to go back to the Way home, he would never find out what he was picking up so strongly about Gerard. He would never be able to know what exactly it was that pulled them together in such a dramatic way. No matter how much he disliked, even _hated_ his paranormal sensitivity and abnormalities, he knew that he had to get to the bottom of this. Gerard would understand. Of course he would.   
.  
First, Frank had to patch things up with Mikey, which probably would be easy enough to do. Frank thought to himself, _He doesn’t have that many friends, I’m going to bet that he doesn’t plan on letting me go._ He almost felt bad for thinking that. Not too long ago, in middle school, Frank was more or less in the same boat as Mikey and even Gerard, he guessed. A sudden knock on his door made him jump. 

“Frank, honey?” 

“Uh, yeah mom?”

“I bought some pizza bagels for you while you were out!”

“…Thanks mom,” Frank answered.

After Frank was able to retreat back to his room after his mother interviewed him about the Way family (every nosey mother in Belleville wanted to know about them) he took out his notebook he kept shoved under his mattress. Inside the blue lined pages he kept a bunch of things that he wanted to generally keep hidden from the world – obscure tattoo ideas, lyrics, sad poems that almost always involved the weather and venues he would like to perform in some day (some he even made up). He flipped the page over that described in vivid detail about the kind of dreams he wished he would have instead of nightmares (most involving sex and themes of the rock star life) and dug out his pen he also stored under his mattress. On the blank space on top of the page he wrote “Stomachaches” and bordered the single word with two periods on either side. The word was relevant. The lumps of chewed up pizza bagels were sitting in his stomach like a brick with the bad memories they carried with them. _All in one day._

He began to write down a riff that he had been building upon for a few days. He got inspired by a Descendants song and had fought through his missing motivation and his slight sadness that week to keep working on it. He needed to get distracted from his darker thoughts before they started consuming him entirely. Patching things up with Mikey was of key importance. As he began to write slightly vague lyrics down on the page, he wondered if he could pass off his actions as being high as fuck. Mikey knew that he smoked weed after all. _Never mind that I act totally different than that when I’m high. Shit. Has Mikey ever seen me when I’m high? Huh. No. I don’t think so._

Frank’s problem half solved, Frank finally concentrated on what he was actually writing and saw that his words were sharply angled down. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, ripping the page out of his notebook. He started over on the next page. Frank would die if anyone had found this notebook. He didn’t want to call it a diary, didn’t even want to call it a journal. It was just his notebook. That nobody was allowed to touch except him. Funny how it was so scared to him, yet the notebook was just a nondescript blue with a super flimsy cardboard paper cover on it. The metal spiral was starting to angle out at the ends. But it was still bound together, and that was all that mattered to Frank. Even though his lyrics were about as dark as his thoughts, Frank didn’t feel the heaviness of sadness as he was writing them down. It was a nice release. Those same thoughts that transformed into meaningful lyrics through Frank’s hand and messy writing quickly turned into a deadly mass of poison in his head if he kept them there too long and paid them too much attention. He was halfway sure that any therapist his family could send him to (if they knew) would suggest the same thing. 

Frank stared down at the line he had just written. _“Blood covering my face and now I’m the color of hell.”_ He arched one eyebrow. He wanted to tell himself that he could do better, but decided to let the words naturally flow from him if he were to go there and describe his recent hauntings. Now the page that he had artfully tilted “Stomachaches” was almost full to bursting. Frank adored how the messy riffs made themselves at home on the sides of the page. It almost didn’t matter in that moment that he was a freak with weird psychic abilities. It didn’t matter that he embarrassed himself to no end at the Way house today. It all didn’t matter. With all this good shit on the paper, he could bring it up with Mikey. Mikey shared that he was getting better at bass on the ride back. He could use this song as a distraction. 

Everything would come together, maybe they could even get Gerard to be involved too somehow. Maybe he would be interested in doing their cover art for the new album. Frank snorted out a sharp laugh, and shut his notebook, cramming it back under his mattress. He didn’t feel so sick anymore with the pizza bagels. In fact, he felt like he needed a few more. He barreled out of his room and into the kitchen, swiping up a few more on his plate. 

“Hot date or something?” His dad teased from the table. 

“Inspiration,” Frank halfway lied through mouthfuls of bread, cheese and pizza sauce. 

“Good,” his father and mother praised both at the same time, their single word each echoing each other’s. Frank was so pumped right now, he couldn’t wait to copy everything down on a separate piece of paper (he never brought his notebook outside of his room) and show it to Mikey, but first he knew he had to be prepared with at least the chorus down flat. He carried his acoustic guitar over to his bed with him, and made sure his strings were all still in tune. 

Frank played. Frank felt like the world wasn’t about to crash down around him. Frank’s dark lyrics were in total contrast to how light and happy he felt right now. The words on the page were downright depressing, but they lacked the ability to bring Frank down now. Frank paused for a second to study one of the lyrics he had written. _“I taught myself how to drown, I’m going under, and soon you’ll learn too.”_ He wasn’t entirely sure what he was referring to, now that he thought about it, but what did it matter? It sounded cool as fuck.

He dug out his chunky Nokia cell phone and selected the option to send Mikey a text message.   
_Bro. Got some new shit to show you. Let’s hang. I won’t faint again, promise._ He bit his lip and pressed send, watching the little 'sending' animation play out on his tiny screen. He didn’t know if Mikey would bother to respond to him or not. If he didn’t, he would try again eventually. Mikey was pretty easy to crack. Hey, maybe Frank could even text Mikey about some vampire rumors if all else failed.

After hanging up the phone with Jamia for the first time in forever, Frank rolled over on his bed and shut his light off. He powered down his phone after seeing that Mikey _did_ write him back after all. He suggested that they even hang tomorrow. Everything was falling into place faster than Frank thought it ever would. Usually, if a guy faints and acts like your brother is the new Jesus at his own house, you’d get the boot faster than you could’ve realized you were getting it. Then again, Mikey wasn’t a normal guy, and neither was Frank. Mikey’s mom was even a little off too. Frank figured that he should be grateful for the small blessing of Mikey Way’s kindness. If he could use his presence in the Way home wisely, and figure out exactly what was going on, maybe they could all look back on this one day and laugh. 

Maybe.

-

Gerard finally awoke. He was laying face down. Dust covered the floor beneath him. He could make out that light was coming into the room, so it was definitely some time during the day. Gerard inhaled sharply, only to start coughing up a lung once he shot up, clambering backwards. His vision was blurry and he felt like he was going to throw up for a second. Vertigo hit him like a truck. Suddenly, his veins felt like they were all on fire at once, trying to sear through his skin. Any minute now, his body would combust. It would’ve been less painful to swallow a gallon of battery acid. He doubled over on himself, moaning in pain and clenching his fists together so hard he thought they would break. He must have been dying. What was happening to him?

“You’re a fighter,” A raspy voice said. It stunk with personality. “That’s good. That probably means your body will accept the change.” Gerard didn’t even have the strength or will to look up to see who had spoken to him. All he could do was struggle and groan. “Just let it all go. Your old life is over. I hope you know that,” they spoke again. Whoever it was, it was male. And this guy was certainly guilty for Gerard’s suffering. 

Gerard let out a strangled cry of sharp pain as the feeling of his insides getting ripped apart consumed him. All of his organs seemed to convulse at once, his heart beating at a speed that no human could have survived. He was scared. He had no idea where he was. New Jersey had done her worst, after all. No one was safe from her clutches, and Gerard was her favorite and most recent victim, dying on the dusty floor of some unknown place. Gerard tried to breathe. It did just the opposite function, and knocked what little wind was left in Gerard’s shriveling lungs. He fell back over. 

The guy from the bus started straight back down at him. His eyes were still black and soulless, and he actually had the nerve to keep his lips curved up into a tiny smirk as Gerard lay dying. He crouched down, swiping up the blood that had dripped from Gerard’s palms. 

“You’re always bleeding all over the place. That won’t be a problem anymore, I don’t think,” the guy cooed, sucking the drop of blood off of his finger. Gerard wanted so badly to spit in the guy’s face and tell him to fuck off (and save him, oh god, please). The world morphed into black all over again after Gerard started to hack up blood, his insides boiling.

Gerard wasn’t a stranger to the idea of death. Normal kids wouldn’t want to go to cemeteries just for the fun of it. Gerard drew comics about death all the time. Death in all its odd forms: through zombies, ghosts, demons, spirits, and vampires. Only a few depressing times in his life did Gerard ever wish for death - but never like this. It was never supposed to be like this. Even when the comic book store he worked at got held up and a robber held up a gun point blank to his forehead. It wasn’t ever supposed to be this burning, horrible pain. Would it ever end? It seemed to go on past the point of forever. Opening his eyes and looking towards the afternoon sunshine leaking in through the broken window burned his eyes as if someone had thrown hot soapy water into them. He screeched, scrambling back towards the darkness, slamming his palms to his eyes and fighting the intense urge to cry. His skin felt withered and his lips were chapped and cracked, feeling like they were going to split apart at any moment.

“I guess I should say that I’m sorry,” The guy on the bus’ voice echoed. “But don’t you feel better? I fucked you up a little bit back there.”

Was this all a fucking joke to him? “Better? Fuck no I don’t! What the fuck is happening to me? My eyes are-”

“That’s because you looked at the _sunlight,_ you idiot. None of that for you anymore. Not now,” The guy answered with a firm tone. 

“What the fuck? What the hell do you mean? I’m not a-”

“You’re not a what? Not a _vampire?_ Oh, yes you are.”

Gerard let out a strangled cry. He landed a single fist on the concrete floor, wildly shaking his head and trying to gasp for air. The guy laughed as Gerard was forced to deal with the fact that vampires were officially, honest to god _real._ And now Gerard was one of them. He’d never be human again.

“No I’m not,” Gerard sobbed.

“Oh, you’re not? I bit you and you survived it? Oh, ok. My mistake. Except, why don’t you show me a little proof that you’re not, huh? Show me you’re still human, Gerard. The sunlight’s right over there, why don’t you go and take another peek?”

“Fucking kill me,” Gerard hissed at the guy, folding in on himself. “Fuck, I’m so thirsty,” Gerard moaned, terrified at the automatic statement that just came out of him. Fuck. Fuck. He couldn’t have been talking about – wouldn’t ever be talking about blood.

“That’s what I thought,” the guy answered. He tossed a Ziploc bag towards Gerard, who had holed up in the corner like a pathetic frightened dog. Not having enough time to think, barely even realizing he was doing it, Gerard lunged towards the bag of blood with no regard for all of his pain and tore it apart with his teeth, cursing and gurgling as the blood splattered on the floor, sucking it off of his hands and lapping up whatever had spilled. He didn’t even care that the dust made the blood turn into a grimy paste on his tongue. It was animalistic. He was suffering, and was exploding with blood lust at the same time. He cried as he licked every last drop of blood off of the floor. He wept, covered in someone else’s blood now.

“Stop crying,” the guy from the bus scolded, tossing another bag full of blood towards Gerard who caught it one handed before ripping it apart again, still crying and moaning with pain and pleasure. “You can’t change anything now,” the guy from the bus stated, his voice tainted with authority. “Finish that shit up and then we are going to have a serious talk young man,” the guy from the bus said, faking the sound of an angered parent. 

“Fuck off!” Gerard yelled, concentrating on getting down all the blood as fast as he could.

“Alright. Go ahead, stay lost and afraid. Terrified, whatever. Have no one around to tell you how this works. How to avoid it getting worse. Yeah, ok. Sounds good to me. I’ll fuck off right now, bye,” the guy from the bus dismissed, turning his back.

 _“Don’t you fucking leave me!”_ Gerard screamed, bursting into a fresh new round of tears. “I have no idea what’s going on,” Gerard blubbered through his sobs. “I’m sorry, I have no fucking idea what’s going on, just please stay with me,” Gerard pleaded, trying to get up on his knees to beg but ended up sliding down to the floor instead, collapsing into a pile of quiet sobs. The guy on the bus stepped closer towards Gerard, bringing him up by his arm and letting him fall back onto his ass. 

“Please, for the love of god, get up,” He said, rolling his eyes. Gerard’s world was turned upside down. His life had just changed forever. Didn’t this guy, no, this _vampire_ know that?

“I don’t know what else to do,” Gerard moaned, curling up into a fetal position. “Fuck, am I dead now?”

“Yeah,” the guy from the bus admitted, shrugging his shoulders as if his plans had gotten rained out for the day. Gerard whined in pain. “Cut that out, Gerard,” the guy from the bus said in a firm tone, shaking Gerard’s shoulder. 

“I’m trying,” Gerard cried, twitching away from the guy’s touch. “How do you know my name?”

“I’ve been stalking you. And I guess you want to know mine, maybe. I’m Pete,” Pete offered, dragging Gerard over to the wall to prop him up and look him in the eyes. As soon as his back hit the wall, he could tell that he was actually starting to feel… better. The fire inside of him had simmered down to a quiet ember, and his insides had finally relaxed and stopped trying to pulverize themselves. Gerard’s face was pink, stained with blood. Little globs of it already coagulated on his face in odd organic shapes.

“Stalking me,” Gerard scoffed, looking over to the side in exhaustion. “I never fucking leave the house. I only go to art school. You can’t stalk me.”

“Well, you do have windows in your house you know,” Pete answered, as if he had to tell Gerard that the sky was blue. 

“Christ,” Gerard cursed, a chill halfway crawling up his spine. “That’s weird dude,” he offered, too exhausted to come up with a better answer. 

“You think?” Pete asked, laughing in a sick tone. “Anyway, I think now that you’ve calmed down for one second I can start explaining some stuff to you. I was going to go get you more to drink, but that would distract you. And probably make you cry again,” Pete laughed, turning to look at Gerard, who sat in an exhausted pile, mindlessly scratching off a few globs of coagulated blood off of his face. “Well, I guess I should start by asking you what you want to know first,” Pete said, shrugging his shoulders again. “Then I can tell you the other stuff.”

“Why don’t you just tell me all of the stuff right now and get it over with?” Gerard asked, his voice tired and cracked. He was too fucking wrecked to play these weird little games.

“Because you’ll interrupt me when I’m talking with the questions I’m already going to answer.”

“Look, please just tell me what I need to know,” Gerard begged, moving his hand for emphasis.

“Well, for starters, you’re dead. And you’ll stay like this… pretty much forever. Unless you fuck up and get killed.”

“How does that happen?”

“Let’s start out by busting a couple of stereotypes, Gerard. The stake through the heart? True. Garlic? Not even. Crosses? You should see how people freak out when they throw one up at me and I just throw it back at them. Sunlight? Well, I think you know about that one.”

“Great,” Gerard moaned, putting his head between his knees. “How am I ever going to get home? I can’t live like this-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. One. I’m not done. Two. We’re going to get to that. Just keep focusing on questions. Don’t fall apart on me again here,” Pete scolded.

“Fine. What about silver?”

“You’re mixing up your stereotypes. I’m pretty sure that's a werewolf thing. You are not a werewolf. You’re a vampire, Gerard. Touch all the silver you want.”

“So, wait… can I turn other people, like you can?”

“In due time. You’re just a day old now. You knocked out for a day after you passed out. Your body almost rejected the change. Not everyone makes it, you know. Yet another reason why people want to pretend that vampires don’t exist,” Pete laughed.

“Not everyone,” Gerard mumbled. He pondered on what had happened to Duncan. Did his body reject the change? Was he possibly still lying somewhere in the forests of New Jersey, dead and cold? “So could my body still reject the change?”

“No. You’re all done now. Like I said, your venom isn’t fully effective yet. That’ll take about a week. Maybe a shorter time. If you tried to turn someone the way you are now, you’d only kill them. Or drain them dry, since you’re so new,” Pete said, waving his hand towards Gerard’s direction.

“Don’t say that like you’re talking about the fucking weather,” Gerard said, his voice harsh yet weak at the same time. He curled in on himself a little bit more. “I don’t like this,” Gerard mumbled. “I didn’t fucking choose this. I guess I have my next question. Why did you choose me? Why didn’t you just kill me?”

“One at a time. I chose you because you're bonded with a psychic individual. A person’s blood takes on a special scent whenever that happens. Yours smelled particularly amazing,” Pete laughed, smirking a bit. Gerard didn’t have to think twice. He knew this ‘individual’ Pete was speaking about was Frank. Who else could it have been?

“I guess I know what you mean.”

“I know you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know if I should be pissed at him or not,” Gerard groaned, running his hand through his hair again. Moving his facial muscles made the dried blood on his face crack and flake.

“Don’t be. Those things aren’t planned, in case you couldn’t already tell,” Pete offered, shrugging again. 

“Why do you look so normal? Kind of, at least, Why aren’t you dressed… I don’t know, differently?”

This made Pete bust up in a roar of laughter, smacking his own leg. “What? Am I supposed to be wearing-” Pete spread his arms for emphasis. “A big ass cape and have bat wings and have my hair slicked back…” Pete kept giggling and dug out something from his jacket pocket. It was a tiny scrap of paper. He tossed it to Gerard, who caught it with one hand without even looking at what Pete had thrown at him. It was a sketch in black ink. His own sketch, from his last day of art school. One of the main vampires in the comic that he had promised his brother Mikey. He looked back at Pete, who arched his eyebrows. “As you can see, we don’t look like that. I don’t, and neither do you,” Pete explained.

“I was just drawing,” Gerard defended, crumpling up the paper in his fist. “That doesn’t mean I thought that vampires actually looked like that.”

“Go ahead and tell me what you would have drawn if you were going to try and draw vampires realistically,” Pete said, his tone rhetorical. “Anyway, time for your next question. The one where you asked why I didn’t just kill you. When you’re like me, there’s risks involved. One of them is well… going red, is the general term in the Kingdom. Going red means that you basically lose yourself. You go nuts. You lose every last drop of your humanity. I held it off for a while. But then I started hanging out with the wrong crowd… and I went down the wrong direction. I know I’m in trouble of going red. I’m heading there. So… I sort of need to pass myself down, you know?”

Gerard shot up and grabbed Pete by the throat, to which Pete responded by grabbing Gerard by the throat right back and slammed him back down to the dust caked floor. He curled his lip up in a rabid snarl, almost hissing. His grip was tighter than a vice, and almost made Gerard beg him to let go. 

“Don’t you fucking get it in your head that you can even _dream_ of fighting me off right now,” Pete growled, his eyes flashing in a tint of red. _No wonder,_ Gerard thought.

“My whole fucking life is over because of you!” Gerard countered. He squirmed and thought about spitting in Pete’s face but thought twice about it. Things would only get worse if he did, and Gerard could only imagine what else would be happening.

“And now you’re at my fucking mercy, so I’d fucking watch yourself if I were you,” Pete growled, shaking his head and smiling in a dangerous way and cocking his head to the side, keeping his eyes trained on Gerard. He let go and Gerard tried to gasp for air, when he realized something. He couldn’t exactly do that. He hit his chest with the side of his fist, trying to bring air, even though… he found that he didn’t need it.

“Fuck,” Gerard cursed, looking back at Pete who was looking way more high strung. 

“Oh yeah,” Pete said. “You don’t have to breathe anymore. I forgot to tell you that little tidbit. It’s kind of funny to watch the newbies try to keep breathing,” Pete laughed, shaking his head and sitting back down.

“You could have fucking told me that,” Gerard whispered, needlessly breathing out a single puff of air and sitting back down next to Pete.

“Now that we’re not trying to kill each other anymore, can I continue?” Pete asked.

“Please do,” Gerard answered, rolling his eyes a bit.

“As I was fucking saying,” Pete continued, “Before I turn into this…big scary monster thing, I want the kingdom to remember that I wasn’t always that way. It’s important. Otherwise, people could start coming after us. Think about that,” Pete said, offering Gerard food for thought. “Stakes ablaze,” Pete said again, shrugging.

“I just… yeah, I guess that’s bad,” Gerard said, looking the other way. This was all too overwhelming to process right now, combined with the anxiety of not knowing what was coming next. “So, what’s this kingdom you keep talking about?”

“Not that you would know before you turned, but there’s a whole kingdom of vampires. We’re all under oath under the oldest surviving vampire. Her name is Esmé. We’re all under her. We’re generally considered to be somewhat independent, but her word is law at the end of the day. She has this stake that was cured in the sunlight. It’s an execution tool for her,” Pete explained. 

“Why do we get executed?” Gerard asked.

“Depends on what you do against the kingdom as a whole. It can be anything from getting caught turning or killing someone in public, getting found out if you’re one of us who lives in a normal society, treason… you can probably figure it out for yourself. Just stay unseen. Unknown. To everyone,” Pete said.

“I can’t do that,” Gerard argued, almost on the brink of tears again. “I have to go back home. How am I going to avoid the sunlight? Wait, does all light burn me?”

“Gerard, ask yourself that. Look. We’re not sitting in pitch black darkness, are we?” Pete asked, waving his hand around the empty dusty room. 

“No,” Gerard grumbled. He hated how Pete was basically patronizing him. 

“So you can be in any type of light, except for sunlight and sometimes candle light. Candle light depends, some vampires can’t be around it at all and some can.”

“So tell me about Esmé. She’s the vampire queen… do I have to do anything?”

“No, Gerard, you don’t have to do anything. She already knows you turned. I’d rather not talk about her, to be honest,” Pete mentioned, casting his eyes down.

“Well, too fucking bad. You told me to ask you questions, so I’m asking. And I want to know about the vampire queen,” Gerard spat.

“Actually, Gerard, you didn’t ask,” Pete countered. “You said ‘tell me about the vampire queen’, you didn’t phrase it as an actual question.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“News to me,” Pete laughed sarcastically.

“Fuck it. How am I going to hide this from everyone? Where am I going to get blood from?”

“One at a time, dude. As far as hiding it from them, it’s going to be tough at first. Not gonna lie. I know how you live though. Not much of a change is gonna have to happen. Just cover up your window. And art school is going to have to stop. Make up something. Donna will believe you. And as for blood… I’ll supply you for the first few weeks. But no matter what you do, _especially_ in the first few weeks, do not bite any humans yet. I’ll train you with your first human. You _have_ to wait for me. Got it? You have to promise me that, Gerard.”

“Yeah, I got it,” Gerard said. The small stab of disappointment that hit him made him feel sick. Was he already such an animal?

“I don’t think you heard me,” Pete scolded sternly. Gerard thought for a split second that Pete was actually gonna wag his finger. 

“Yes, I did, I got it. I’ll wait for you,” Gerard said. A mess of emotions went through his head, everything ranging from disgust to rage to sadness. “But what if I can’t stop myself? What if this all goes to shit?”

“Cool it, Debbie downer. How often am I gonna have to remind you that you only have access to one question at a time? You’ll get used to this,” Pete said, waving his hand in dismissal. “Also, I thought you just got done telling me that you never get out of the house except to go to art school, which I can verify is true. ‘How could anyone stalk me?’ ” Pete teased, mocking Gerard’s voice. 

“You know what I fucking mean, asshole,” Gerard spat, curling up in on himself a little bit more. 

“Gerard, Gerard, how are we ever gonna work together on this if you don’t shut up and give me a chance?” Pete sleazed, shaking his head in a nonchalant way. 

“My fucking life just got ruined, man, if that means anything to you,” Gerard hissed.

“I thought we were just done going over that. And let me take this time to mention that your life is actually going to improve a little, to be honest. I think you’ve noticed by now that your reflexes got way faster, and your senses are a little sharper. Take a little time to stop and smell the roses, check out the details around here a little bit - see what I mean.”

Gerard listened. He lifted his head up to observe the dusty basement around him, and looked around. There were religious items balled up in corners, and the dust had tiny mountains inside of them. A room that should’ve looked shitty to anyone else was full to the brim of detail. Everything was suddenly in high definition. Gerard could see how deep the cracks in the wall were. He noticed every shade of discoloration in the altar cloths and the broken crucifixes. He couldn’t stop staring - everything had so many little details that just begged to be studied. 

“Impressive, huh? I know. Way different, or should I say better, than regular old human eye sight. Of course, you’re gonna have to get used to it really quick. It’s only gonna make you look weirder if you keep staring with your jaw wide open at normal things in your house,” Pete mentioned, shrugging his shoulders yet again. Gerard was starting to get sick of that annoying trait _really_ fast.

“I’ll remember that,” Gerard grumbled, annoyed that Pete couldn’t seem to cut him any slack. “Uh, it obviously looks like you brought me to a church. We’re in the basement, or something.”

“Now, stand up,” Pete said, getting up himself and trying to rouse up Gerard with one hand gesturing upwards. “I have something to show you, come on,” Pete said. 

Reluctantly, Gerard stood up, noticing and hating how his knees and legs shook as if he was a newborn fawn. 

“Come on, hurry up, you got this,” Pete encouraged. Huh, that was odd. Pete actually sounded supportive for once. Hanging onto what little hope that statement gave him, Gerard came closer to Pete who swerved behind him in a flash and knocked something over his head. As he was falling back down to the ground, Gerard had enough time in that split second to think, _damn it, I should have seen that coming, I did see that coming, but I’m still too slow, damn him, what am I gonna do?_

Darkness cascaded over him like curtains dropping, and before he could even think of fighting back, Gerard began fading out of consciousness. There were moments where he blinked back into reality, gleaning only sparse information of what Pete was possibly doing to him, and couldn’t determine if he was dreaming that he was in the backseat of a car, lying on his back. He faded back into darkness, opening his eyes god knew how much later to see what looked like somebody’s front yard. That, also, could’ve easily been a dream. Gerard felt so weak, he gave up again and let the darkness take over. He could only hope now that Pete didn’t plan on killing him.


	4. Our Lady of Sorrows

Frank didn’t know what to do, or what to think.  
Gerard Way had been missing for three days now.

The fliers around town were everywhere. Frank felt like they were plastered all over his brain, too. The cops were of little help, despite being told that Gerard wouldn't _ever_ just… not come home. Mikey was beside himself. He no longer had that air of relaxation, now he just looked ill. Rumors were flying around everywhere, shit like Gerard must have been murdered, or had gone off into a remote forest in the deepest corners of New Jersey and killed himself. Sure enough, people also pushed that vampires were certainly involved. The sheer notion of it annoyed Frank to no end. It could not have had anything to do with fucking vampires, of all things. Deep down in his gut, he doubted that very thought, but he couldn’t afford to dwell on the possibility. Even factoring in that Belleville was a bad town, Frank also couldn’t rely on the thought that Gerard could have been done in on his way to art school. Mikey had said it himself a thousand times - Gerard hardly left the house, there was no possible way that Gerard could have made any enemies. 

Frank already knew what Mikey was going to say before he first mentioned that Gerard was missing. Frank felt differently, felt wrong before that. Something had gone amiss. He kept waiting for something to happen to him (maybe his nightmares finally killing him off in his sleep), but instead, whatever it was, it had happened to Gerard. Deep down, Frank was convinced that it was his fault. Whatever strange exchange happened between him and Gerard on that day Frank decided to visit the Way house, it must have triggered something in the gears of fate. 

It was the day that Frank had planned on visiting Mikey again to show him his new song that he wanted Mikey to lay down some sweet bass riffs to. Frank had called and asked if Mikey was still ok with him coming over. He needed some more positive vibes, and he needed them as soon as possible. What vibes Frank got were anything but good with that one phone call. Mikey seemed down, and more depressed than he had ever sounded for as long as Frank had known him. Immediately, Frank asked Mikey what was wrong. Mikey had told Frank to go ahead and come over, that he would tell him then. As soon as Frank had arrived at the Way house for the second time, he noticed how much heavier the air and energy was inside. He remembered how his guitar case suddenly felt like a laughable, awkward weight on his back as he asked what was up, looking at Donna and Mikey as they sat on a plastic covered couch. He looked over towards Gerard’s door, hoping and hoping that it would open to reveal the odd raven haired beauty. 

Donna had looked up at Frank, her eyes heavy and sad. Mikey broke the strained silence first, not even resorting to his usual nervous habit of pushing up his glasses.

“Gerard… he’s missing, dude. We thought he would be back by now… he left to go to art school after you left the last time you were here, and he hasn’t been back since. No one knows where he’s at. We kept hoping he would give us a call or something, but it’s like he just disappeared. We just called the cops before you called me,” Mikey said, his voice cracking with grave worry. 

“No, fuck,” Frank cursed, lifting his hands up to either side of his head, turning a bit before he took a seat on the other plastic covered couch inches away from him. His head had started spinning, he couldn’t tell if he was about to throw up or burst into sobs. But he had to keep it together. He had to focus, maybe if he focused and controlled his emotions long enough, he thought that he could get an idea as to where Gerard would be. If he could gain any kind of benefit from his connection to Gerard, he’d tried to use it now - manipulate it so that it could _maybe_ give him an idea of how far away Gerard might be. Mikey had come and sat down next to him, running an awkward and heavy hand over Frank’s shoulder blades. “…You’ll find him,” Frank reassured, moving Mikey’s hand away gently. “He’ll be home soon. I promise,” Frank said, sounding confident even though his head was angled towards the dirty and stained carpet. 

“Yeah, yeah, he will be,” Mikey agreed, hanging his head now. He let out a broken sob. Donna was sitting at the kitchen table now, her head in her hands. 

“I’ll help you find him,” Frank said, lifting his head up and straightening up his posture. “I swear to god that I’ll help. We can do fliers and shit. I’ll keep bugging the cops and get people involved. We’re gonna bring him back home, ok?” He told Mikey.

“Frank, don’t worry this much about it,” Donna called from the table. Tears were running down her cheeks in silent races. “We can take care of it. I know you’re worried about Gerard too, but we wouldn’t want to put this burden on you. This is hard enough as it is… please don’t take it the wrong way,” Donna asked, her voice strained with genuine care.

“But I have to,” Frank countered, lifting his gaze to Donna’s. “He’s… he’s my friend, and Mikey’s my friend too, I want to help,” Frank said, determined. 

“We’ll find a way for you to help,” Mikey stated, nodding his head through his silent tears. “Gerard… Gerard can’t be dead, and we’re gonna find him.”

“Hell yeah, we will,” Frank said, nodding his head along with Mikey. It took a lot for Frank to hold back his sorrow and worry from transforming into tears. “We got this, dude,” Frank said, patting Mikey on the back firmly. 

That night, they set to spreading the word to local news channels that Gerard was missing. They provided what rare family photos there were of Gerard to the stations, and fought hard for their cause to be heard. The authorities had reluctantly cooperated, almost annoyed at the fact that they had yet another missing person’s case on their hands. 

Now it had been three days, and Gerard’s missing person fliers were in every grocery store and library for miles. It was beyond emotionally exhausting, especially now that Frank’s nightmares had taken a dramatic turn. They were now centered around Gerard, and he had transformed into something that was _definitely_ not him. In his nightmares, Frank was still wearing the same weird and stupid looking white suit, and Gerard had elongated canines that were most definitely fangs.

Frank refused to believe it. Vampires had been a common subject in his plague of nightmares. This just had to go along with it. Frank’s mother had approved of Frank joining the exhausting hunt to look for Gerard, but seemed more worried about Frank even now more than ever before. 

“Honey, I’m worried about you,” was a phrase that became more common in the short passage of time. “Please, don’t get yourself killed over this,” she mentioned, always bringing Frank in for a tight motherly hug. 

“Yeah, I promise,” Frank would answer, grateful for the affection but questioning his diminishing emotional strength at the same time. How could Gerard disappear so suddenly, and out of nowhere? It especially wasn’t fair that it had happened right after they had met. Frank was doing this mainly for answers to his questions about Gerard. He wanted to be near him now more than ever. Every passing second shrank the possibility that Gerard would come out of this alive and well.

Now Frank was lying in bed, still plagued by unrest after a nightmare filled night. He wanted to cry. The nightmares spiking in their intensity obviously correlated to Gerard going missing. Frank had woken up drenched in his own sweat. He was surprised he hadn’t screamed in his sleep. This last nightmare involved Gerard lunging after Frank, his face sunken and dirty as he opened up his mouth with a hiss and plunged his fangs deep into Frank’s throat, scratching his nails down Frank’s shoulder blades so hard that blood dripped down his back. Gerard had pulled back to look Frank in the eye, smiling a crazy, detached grin that was enough to make Frank want to lose his guts all over the place. Although Gerard didn’t speak in the nightmare, Frank could hear him in his mind, a crystal clear tone. Soon, you’ll be dead too.

Frank wanted to concentrate on picking up the extra little pile of Gerard’s missing person’s fliers and think about where else to hang them all around the surrounding towns today. He wanted to focus on helping out the Way family and putting himself to good use. But Frank couldn’t stop himself from thinking about how idiotic he was for thinking (and feeling) that Gerard could have actually turned into a vampire, and that his nightmares were doing the ungentle grace of warning him of his future death.  
Frank thought that smoking a nice fat blunt would keep his nerves and his unwanted ‘abilities’ at bay, but given the high strung circumstances and the miniscule amount of personal time that he had in recent days, it did not seem like that was going to be happening any time soon. Especially with his mom hanging around even more. Frank ran one hand over his face, pausing to rub his shut eyes. He felt bad for neglecting his new song that he had been so proud of the other day that was still stuck in the fraying pages of his notebook under his mattress. As if the thing had feelings. He rolled his eyes, letting out a puff of air that would have been a laugh in another life. 

He knew that he still had the drive for it. Sure, everything was falling apart around him, but he was determined to finish it right away after this mess was all over. Frank already had his master plan set out in his mind of how it would go. He would go back to the Way house after things had settled and Gerard had his fill of ‘we were all so worried about you’, and he would bring a copy of his song with him to show Mikey. Maybe he would try to get Gerard involved too, even just for feedback. They would all build on it together. It would be a nice and productive way to patch the awkward incidents up. And then, maybe the nightmares would let up after Frank saw that Gerard was, in fact, still a human like he was before he went missing. His useless worries would be put to rest for good on the matter. Gerard was going to return, one way or another, and Frank knew that better than his own name. It was an overpowering sensation, similar to the one he felt when he and Gerard had first met. He just wished that he at least _felt_ and _knew_ that Gerard was safe and unturned just as strongly. Even half as strongly. It made a small, black fear form in his stomach.  
-

Gerard awoke in an unfamiliar bed.

Instantly, he remembered that Pete had been the asshole that had hit him upside the head and knocked him out, but Gerard found it strange that the area where he was struck didn’t hurt one bit. Gerard sat up and swung his legs over the bed, pursing his lips. Of course nothing hurt. He was a fucking vampire. For a second, Gerard was kind of grossed out that he had been passed out and sleeping in someone else’s bed. He turned his head towards his shoulder and sniffed, instantly hit by an overpowering scent of flowery Tide detergent and thankfully not some indescribably bad body odor and dried up sweat. He was still underestimating his heightened sense of smell. Recovering from the overpowering burst of smell, Gerard immediately called out for Pete, confused and pissed off.

“Pete? Where the fuck are you?” Gerard yelled, getting up to his feet and navigating his way through the house as if he were a walking lightning bolt. He stopped in an unfamiliar kitchen, widening his eyes. He was taken aback at his new inhuman speed. _Fuck._

“Oh, you’re up, finally,” Pete’s voice called from the other room. Rolling his eyes, Gerard sped to the source of his voice, which took him all of one second to do. Gerard found him lying on a couch, still dressed in the same outfit consisting of a red hoodie, skinny jeans, and ratty converse that had certainly seen better days. “Ever seen Hell’s Kitchen? Gordon gives me life. If I had any,” Pete said. Puns were not welcome in Gerard’s dictionary right now. 

“I’m… not even gonna answer that. Where are we? Please, just give me a straight answer,” Gerard pleaded.  


“My buddy Patrick’s house. It’s cool, he said we could crash here.”

  


“How the fuck would _I_ know that? What if it’s not ok? What if you’re just trying to fucking kill me? What if-”

  
Pete lunged for Gerard and slapped a hand over Gerard’s mouth, staring him straight in Gerard’s now watery eyes.  


“I really fucking need you to take _everything_ that’s going on with you right now down by about a thousand notches. Everything is _ok,_ Gerard. Why would I lie to you about this?”

Gerard made a protesting, incredulous noise at this point.

  


“Just stop thinking that everything is crashing down around you right now. I know you think it is. I know it feels like it. But you have to remember that I’m gonna guide you through this before I fucking lose it and go red, like I told you. Understand?” 

Gerard nodded, sighing through his nose. 

  


“Good,” Pete said, dropping his hand. “Also, remember that you don’t have to breathe all the time. Anymore, I mean.”

  


“It’s gonna take me a second,” Gerard grumbled. “So, who’s Patrick again?”

  


“He’s my friend.”

  


“I’m guessing he knows that you’re…”

“A _vampire,_ Gerard. You can say it, dude. It’s not a bad word. Mom’s not gonna make you eat soap if you say it,” Pete scolded. This made Gerard think about his mother. His odd, sweet mother whose hair was platinum blond and fried to no end. His eyes began to cast downward.

  


“…Vampire. So he knows that we’re… we’re vampires.”

  


“Yeah. He doesn’t mind. He knows my time is almost up anyway.”

  


“I don’t know why you keep saying it so calmly.”

  


Pete laughed before he spoke. “If you recall me telling you about how this whole thing works. It’s a somewhat slow process. I’m _also_ trying to teach you how to not get to this point.”  


“Oh, how kind of you,” Gerard spat with sarcasm in his voice.  


“You’ll be thanking me later,” Pete said as he got up and sped over to the fridge in the kitchen.

  


“Why didn’t you tell me I could do that before?”

  


“You were gonna figure it out eventually. I thought that you’d think it was fun. Don’t you?”

Gerard placed his palm over his face. He didn’t answer Pete, he just walked back over to the couch that Pete was sitting on earlier and curled up in on himself. Suddenly, his throat started burning like crazy. He coughed, then opened his mouth as his fangs snapped out further. A small chill ran up his spine and his whole body felt a longing. A need. Adrenaline that could only be calmed by one thing, and he needed it now. He didn’t have time to mourn his humanity. He didn’t have any time to think that he was disgusting, that this lust he felt was unorthodox and insane. He let his limbs relax and he cracked his neck, his mind hazing over with animalistic instincts. His mouth was slightly parted, and his fangs rode on the edge of lips. He moaned quietly in his throat, shivering again before he sped to the kitchen, standing in the doorway, wordless and his mouth agape.  
“Thirsty?” Pete said without turning around. He tossed a fresh bag of dark red blood onto the kitchen floor. Gerard lunged for it and ripped it apart with his fangs, growling low in his throat and lapping up every single sweet drop of liquid ruby. He didn’t care how pathetic, horribly unhuman, and crazed he looked right now as he was licking and sucking someone else’s blood up off of someone’s kitchen floor that he never met in his life. All that mattered was that he needed to get every last bit of blood that was in the bag into his system. It was delicious. It was sexy. It was everything he needed, so, so badly.

“Like that? Here,” Pete said, tossing another bag at Gerard. It was the church basement all over again. Except this time he wasn’t crying or moaning out of pain, he was just happy that the blood was collecting in his mouth and in his cold veins. Rain started to patter on the windows and on the roof of the house. When Gerard was human, he used to love listening to the rain. It calmed him, made him stop and breathe. It inspired him. He loved to draw comics and sketches that involved rain as soon as he heard it start raining, or better yet, storming. There was always at least a fifty percent chance of rain in the cloudy town of Belleville. 

But Gerard just wasn’t human anymore. As he got up off of the kitchen floor (Patrick’s kitchen floor, according to an untrustworthy Pete) and wiped his mouth, he doubted there would ever be a time when he could draw again, inspired by the rain like some depressed poet. Pete was talking to him, but Gerard basically just ignored what Pete said. He knew he was taking the risk of Pete getting super pissed off, but right now, the incredible and consuming thirst for blood he had felt just moments ago had been met. He was quenched. He felt a little stronger, too.

  


“Gerard, are you listening to what I’m fucking saying?” Pete asked, speeding over to Gerard and grabbing his shoulder, spinning him around and getting all up in his face, determined and unforgiving. This guy couldn’t cut anybody any slack when they needed it, and Gerard was a prime example of this.

  


“What _were_ you saying?” Gerard asked. He was beyond tempted to smirk. He did. It pissed Pete off, that was obvious. But he didn’t act on it, to Gerard’s surprise.

  


“I was saying that - wait, no. I was _asking_ you if you wanted to go back home today!” Pete drew back and laughed as if he had just kicked a man while he was down and injured. Gerard did know one thing right now though. Pete was lying.

  


“Liar,” Gerard hissed. He didn’t return Pete’s good mood. He only met Pete with a grim, grey stare. He felt like he could actually take Pete on now without so much as a blink of an eye. He didn’t care anymore, at least right now. He needed to get out of here, sunlight or no sunlight. This couldn’t go on, as much as Gerard knew he needed guidance, anything was better than being under Pete’s fucking thumb like this.

  


“Oh, really, excuse me? What fucking right do you have calling me a fucking liar? What if I wasn’t lying, huh? What if you were actually paying attention for once, and realized that _you didn’t fucking need those people?_ That right now, you _only need me?_ I bet you didn’t think about that, huh Gerard?” Pete yelled, backing Gerard up against the wall. Gerard was ready. The fresh blood in his body was pumping and Gerard felt an intense strength that he had never possessed as a human. He knew he was about to do this. He was gonna fight Pete. Right here, right now, maybe even take his undead life. 

He went for it. He attacked Pete to the fucking ground and went for his throat. Pete roared beneath him.

Instantly, faster than Gerard could even understand, he was flipped over onto his back and was bitten in the shoulder. He swore that he felt pain, even just for a second, but as he relaxed just a little bit he realized… he felt nothing at all. Pete arose from Gerard’s chest and looked at him with piercing eyes.

“I dare you to go after me again one more fucking time, Gerard Way. One more time. I’ll end this all for you right now. I can take even _more_ away from you.”  
Gerard looked up at Pete’s eyes, he concentrated enough to see that Pete’s eyes were turning ever so slowly into dark rubies. Going red.

  


“It’s happening to you, isn’t it?” Gerard said, his voice soft and scratched with a rasp.  


Pete only stared at him, his eyes growing to a slightly more intense red. He even panted a bit, still not responding.  


“Pete?” Gerard asked, a little concerned for him right now. Pete only answered by curling up his lip into an animalistic snarl, his shoulders shaking and his teeth chattering a bit. “Pete, answer me,” Gerard pleaded, making the mistake of trying to squirm out from underneath Pete. Pete lunged for his throat and ripped out a piece of Gerard’s flesh, making Gerard scream in pure terror and pain. Pete didn’t even realize he was doing this- if he was even Pete anymore. Gerard became frozen, the only thing moving on his body were his lips, which were trembling and parted to let out pained moans. He tried so, so fucking hard to tell Pete to stop with his eyes, but he wasn’t sure anything was going to get through to him at this point. Was he already gone, gone entirely? He wouldn’t ever shut up about how it was going to happen sooner rather than later. Maybe right now was _sooner._

Gerard wanted to freak out about how quickly his skin was healing itself and how fast the pain was disappearing. His skin was forming back together like it was hot wax that was cooling. It burned as if it was on fire at first, and now his skin was repairing itself, coagulating back into a solid piece. He decided to just accept it and just let it happen. What was a little bit more important right now was if Pete could get himself together or not. Pete had apparently been watching Gerard’s odd healing process and backed up, his eyes darkening back to black, much to Gerard’s relief. He decided to try and start calling out for him again.  


“Pete? You ok? Uh… look, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Gerard mumbled, daring to inch back further away from Pete as Pete slowly rose up and retracted his fangs back into his mouth, letting a low sound emit from his throat as he rubbed his eyes. His eyes were fully back to normal now. Pete sat back down on the couch, pulling his hood up over his face again. It was just like when Gerard first saw him on the bus. Only the side of his cheeks and his full, tan lips were in view. He had looked the same way as when Gerard saw him on the bus mere days ago.  


Gerard decided to repeat his question. “Dude? Are you good? I’m sorry I flipped out on you again. I’m still all freaked out about this, ok? I trust you. I believe you. Whoever Patrick is… it’s all good, ok?”  


“Yeah,” Pete said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. He didn’t turn around to look at Gerard, there wasn’t even the usual touch of sarcastic personality in his voice. It was blank and empty. Almost frightened. Gerard swore that he could hear the house across the street stare at them through the windows. He knew that he _did_ hear someone walking up the porch, taking jingling keys out of their pocket and sticking them in the lock on the front door. Gerard just stood there, not exactly knowing what he should do, until he saw who opened the door. In his heart of hearts, he could feel that it was Patrick. But he felt the weird need to ask anyway.

“Patrick?” Gerard asked where he stood, his clothes all ratty and bloody. He probably looked as if he had just got done killing somebody.

“Uh, yeah, that’s me! Pete, you good, man?” Patrick asked, setting a brown paper bag of groceries on the table before walking right over to a slumped over Pete that was still sitting in the same position on Patrick’s couch. Gerard thought Patrick stepped straight out of a men’s version of Good Housekeeping magazine. He was blond, his hair cut fashionably short with bangs hanging just so over his eyes. He wore a grey fedora that was lined with a black ribbon and had on a red sweater with a grey shirt underneath. His jeans were dark and discolored on the folds near his thighs and his shoes were old white converse. He wore black framed glasses that should have made him look like a dork, but it just added to his gentle demeanor. Gerard had never imagined that Pete would be friends with _this_ sort of guy.

Pete only answered Patrick in silence. Gerard was two seconds away from thinking that Pete was acting like an overgrown child at this point with the whole not answering thing.  


“Pete?” Patrick asked again, crouching in front of Pete and looking up at him through his black rimmed glasses.  


“Hey,” Pete whispered, still not moving. Gerard watched Patrick smile nervously.  


“You ok buddy?”  


_Huh. Buddy,_ Gerard thought to himself.  


“I’ll be fine,” Pete answered, still unmoving.  


“What happened?” Patrick asked quietly.  


“Just the same thing,” Pete answered. He was still masking his face with his red hoodie. Gerard found this odd as he finally took a seat next to the brown bag that Patrick placed on the table. He watched the two intently. At moments he felt that he shouldn’t be watching, almost as if it was too private to be seen.  


“So I guess that’s why you got him, right? Oh god, Pete…” Patrick said, shaking his head and casting his eyes down to the carpeted ground, pursing his lips together. He almost looked like he was about to cry.  


“Don’t do that. I don’t like it when you get sad,” Pete told Patrick, his posture as still as ever.  


“No, it’s just that I’m… incredibly worried about you. I know you’ve been talking about it for a while but I didn’t think it was gonna happen this soon.”  


“Don’t be like this, please. It’s only gonna make it harder, Patrick,” Pete said, now leaning forward to get closer to Patrick.  


“What am I being like?” Patrick countered weakly, not even putting enough emphasis in his tone to demand an answer.  


“You know what I’m talking about,” Pete answered anyway. Gerard could even hear Pete’s lips stretching into a very weak smile.  


“So what’s his name again?”  


“Gerard,” Pete whispered, sounding kind of nervous. Gerard took a second to think about what was just exchanged between them. It only took him a moment to figure out that Pete must have mentioned Gerard to Patrick when he was stalking him. He wanted to walk away and let Pete and Patrick talk their shit out. He had almost nothing to do with their odd conversation. But he felt like he needed to keep seeing this side of Pete, and how he talked with Patrick.  


“You keep acting like it’s gonna happen any second now, Pete.”  


“That’s because _it is_ ,” Pete hissed, raising his voice a bit. Even though it was still in a hush hush tone, Gerard thought that it was odd that he would do that to Patrick. They seemed to be too close. It was blatantly obvious that when it came down to it, no matter what happened, if they argued, if they were far apart, miles away - they had an unmistakable bond, a connection. And it was extremely familiar. 

Gerard instantly recognized it as the bond that him and Frank had shared. Their souls, each one of them had a presence that was like a magnet for the other. Whatever it was, it made Gerard feel lonely. He thought about Frank. He finally turned around, not caring that both Pete and Patrick had surely heard him go. He went back inside what was supposedly the guest room, heading over towards the bed. Pete had told him that vampires didn’t need to breathe. He never said anything about vampires not needing any sleep. 

Gerard didn’t care, he exhaled and crawled into the messy bed, shifting under the blue covers. He… needed some sleep. Pete loved to tell him that he was always taking things too hard and overreacting. He had told him over and over that he just had to let it all go. Gerard pulled the covers up over his head. He thought harder about his mom and about his brother Mikey now. He wondered what they were doing about him being missing. He didn’t want to even imagine how they were feeling. He wanted to go home. Pete had hinted that he would be taking him back at some point, of course it would have to be after they left Patrick’s house. Of course, that would have to be some point after Pete and Patrick stopped having their conversation. He couldn’t make his body surrender to relaxation and for his brain to turn off and stop thinking. Not to mention that the bloodlust was beginning to frighten him again – not that he was thirsty, but he was not looking forward to going through it again anytime soon. 

Gerard pulled the covers up and over his head once again, grumbling once out of frustration before he wrenched the covers away from his face and sat up, getting out of the guest room. He didn’t care if when he got downstairs Pete and Patrick would still be talking or not. He got downstairs and didn’t lift his eyes up from the floor while he called out for Pete.  


“Pete! I thought you said you would take me home today,” Gerard called out.  


“Hold your fucking horses. I did say that, and that’s what I’m gonna do, but what do you expect? You want me to take you out in the _sunlight?_ ”  


Gerard instantly felt stupid. He winced. How did he just magically forget that they were in this dim house with the windows shut and covered, every light switched off? The only light hitting the floorboards muffled and indirect, just barely glowing against the walls and reflecting with the weakest intent?

Gerard looked back up at Pete, who was smirking. It was too obvious that he was holding back a chuckle. Gerard felt a strange rush of anger, but knew too well that if he acted upon it yet again and tried to fight Pete, he’d end up dead, _really dead_ , or worse. He had no idea what the list of consequences of being the victim of a red vampire were.  


“We’re gonna wait until after it gets dark. You might get thirsty again, and I’m ready for that,” Pete said, jerking his thumb over to the fridge, implying that the little bags of blood were all in there, fresh and ready to be devoured. “Until then, we wait.”  


“Where’s Patrick?” Gerard asked, angling his head to look to see if Patrick was still there. The brown paper bag of groceries was still sitting innocently on the table, full of unopened and carefully selected healthy foods. It matched Patrick’s demeanor perfectly. Gerard already knew that Patrick wasn’t there. He knew that he would have heard him breathing, or shifting around his weight on the couch if he had been sitting on it. He would have heard him take off his hat. He probably would have even heard his blood running through his veins if he concentrated just a bit more.  


“He left, if you couldn’t already tell,” Pete said.  


“I know that, but why? He just got back from getting food and everything,” Gerard said, barely making the effort to gesture towards the brown paper bag.  


“He forgot to get something at the store. He can be pretty forgetful,” Pete said, not looking at Gerard. Gerard didn’t really have enough time to be thankful that Pete was in a state that was more ‘him’ at the moment, much better than the hangover from being red for a minute there. Even though Pete seemed like he was better, he still was not one hundred percent. He was carrying himself with more sadness.  


“Uh, what’s wrong?” Gerard asked, running his hand through his hair yet again. He felt dirty. He wanted to bathe, but after he was done talking to Pete.  


“I don't think you want to know, to be honest. You wouldn’t get it, trust me,” Pete rejected.  


“I think I do,” Gerard said, making his voice a little firmer to grab Pete’s respect and attention. “I saw how you guys were talking just now. I saw the way you look at him and how he looks at you, and I think that I do know what I’m talking about.”

Pete just laughed. He shook his head, the bastard. He walked over to the fridge, dragging out an overpriced glass bottle of iced Starbucks coffee.  


“I can tell that you’re thinking that I’m just saying that it’s love or something, right? That’s what you’re thinking right? I can almost hear you fucking think that shit. Well, that’s not it. That’s not it, and I thought you would know that. You _know_ what I’m talking about, Pete,” Gerard said, not breaking his confidence for a single moment. He thought about Frank while Pete just stood there, looking over at Gerard with slight bewilderment.  


“Uh?” Pete said. 

“Uh, nothing. You just don’t want to fess up to it because I know what’s going on between you two. I know because it’s happening with me and Frank, too.”  


“You and Frank, huh? You have to be kidding me, Gerard,” Pete said, his tone dragging on so that it let the world know that his sarcasm could knock down the empire state building.  


“Wow,” Gerard said, exasperated. “You don’t have to be an asshole about it, you know."  


“I’m not. And I’m saying that you don’t have to be so demanding about me and Patrick either,” Pete laughed, weaker this time, taking a seat across from Gerard. Gerard was kind of sure that he had just hit a nerve with Pete just now about Patrick, and this odd bond that they both knew about.  


“Sorry,” Gerard mumbled. “It’s just that… ok, I’m guessing that you saw the same thing happen to me and Frank just the other day. It… really kind of freaked me out. I think it messed with him too. It was really intense and I didn’t understand it at first. I don’t even think that I understand it right now. So… that’s why I really want to talk to you about it. You must know more about it than him or I do. Can you just fill me in on that? What is it, exactly? How do I make it go away?”  


“You can’t make it go away, Gerard,” Pete said, looking right into his eyes with all seriousness. “You don’t think that there’s a reason I didn’t want to talk about this in the first place? Well, there is. And I’m gonna tell you what that reason is, since you already experienced it and you’re ready enough since you already made it through the change. You know that I’m gonna send you back home in a while here. You’ll see Frank again, if you like it or not. You have no choice. You guys… you’re drawn to each other, you’re together, just like Patrick and I. It’s a bond. The bond, is what I call it, what Patrick and I call it, anyway. Some people who have the bond with other people use it in terms of friendship. Some use it in love…” Pete paused, making Gerard a little uncomfortable. “…and some just say fuck it, and try to ignore each other because their bond is too strong. Strong enough so that everyone else can see it, notice it, and worst of all, question them about it. They don’t want that, as you can imagine, the people with the bond. Because they don’t even understand it all themselves. Completely, anyway. They either don’t want to, or they’re scared, or just a mix of both. When they try to stay away from each other, they start getting weaker. They need each other, or else, things will start going wrong. Their bodies are like magnets. Water to the other’s plant. If they don’t have each other, their souls will essentially just…wither away and be empty. Or they die. Or they go nuts, and end up in the crazy house. You get the idea,” Pete said.  


“So this bond is different for everyone who has one?”  


“Basically. But it all has the same result in the end. They need to maintain contact, or they lose themselves. One of the worst parts is, it doesn’t always happen equally. One might go faster than the other, and the other person might not even realize it before it’s too late, and one of them is gone. Which just makes everything worse, as you can imagine.”  


“Why do I have this bond with Frank?”  


“You don’t get to choose. But these crazy bonds tend to happen more with people who are abnormal, those who have something that other people don’t. Or… targets of vampires,” Pete said, shifting his eyes back up to Gerard.

“So then this is specifically because of me?” Gerard asked.  


“No, I don’t think so. I read that boy. I think he’s the most sensitive person in New Jersey,” Pete said with a hint of a smile resting on his mouth.  


“Sensitive? Read him? The fuck, that doesn’t make sense. For one, I thought you were just after me, and not him,” Gerard stated.  


“That does _not_ mean that I can only see stuff about you, Gerard. I’m not fucking programmed to just recognize everything Gerard and nothing else. What, this whole time you didn’t think that I observed the people around you too, the people close to you?”  


“I don’t have that many people close to me,” Gerard countered.  


“That doesn’t mean that you don’t have at least some. Don’t complain. I had to, or else how was I going to get you back?” Pete stabbed.  


“Fuck,” Gerard sighed, holding his head with both of his hands. Even now that he was a vampire, this was almost too much to take in all at once, that him and his family and what little friends he had had all been stalked for god knows how long by this sleaze, Pete. “Ugh, fine, never mind about that. I think that you need to remember that I’m still going through a lot of shit here.”  


“I do, I do,” Pete said, rolling his eyes. “And I think you have to remember too that I’m an asshole with quite a few more years of being a vampire than you do,” Pete laughed.  


“Amazing how you think I don’t know that,” Gerard growled. Pete was so fucking irritating it was impossible. “Please, just hurry the fuck up and tell me about Frank. About what you meant by being sensitive.”  


“I _mean_ that Frank is a sensitive. He can pick up on evil energies and ghosts better than anyone around him. He should have his own show on TLC for being a psychic medium and shit, not the lady that lives in Miami. I looked into her, all that’s special about her is her people, lying, and guessing skills,” Pete laughed. “But Frank, he’s something good. He’s quality. The best part is, he hates it. I’m sure you remember him telling you all about his nightmares. I do, I was listening in too. Poor guy. He doesn’t deserve that shit. He’s got a power that some people would sign their life away for, and fate picks him to bear it. I feel bad for him. He gets those nightmares every night, and I’m sure that they’ve only been getting worse since you ‘went missing’,” Pete said, bordering his last couple of words with air quotes made with his fingers. “Are you telling me too that you can’t feel that shit? You should be able to, you guys have a pretty strong bond, maybe even like the one Patrick and I have. He’s… suffering pretty badly. I know that he misses you more than he can even understand. He also doesn’t understand this bond. It hurts him,” Pete said, his tone dropping from stabbing and uncaring to sad and understanding in a matter of seconds. Gerard was frozen. He didn’t even want to talk back to Pete, much less answer him right this second. It even hurt a little to look into his eyes. Gerard wondered if the pain that Frank felt was passing onto him somehow, it would explain his sudden tiredness just before he came back downstairs.  


“So… if I want to stop it - the pain -"  


“Which you do, don’t lie,” Pete said, flashing a smirk.  


“…I have to go see him. I have to go be with him, so we can be near each other and whatever, and then it’ll stop?”  


“You bet,” Pete said, standing up and walking over towards the bag of groceries that Patrick had left behind. He dug his hand into the bag, rustling the paper and the items around to take them out and put them away for Patrick.  


“So we don’t have to get together or anything,” Gerard asked Pete, nervousness tainting his tone and his voice.  


Pete just laughed a bit and concentrated more on putting the healthy food that Patrick bought away. “Easier said than done.”  


“You have to be fucking me. You guys are-”  


“Not that it’s any of your business, but no. We’re not. We _were,_ ” Pete said, closing the refrigerator door a little harder than he had to. “But that can’t happen. Not again, anyway. I have to let him go,” Pete said, turning around with a sarcastic smile and waving his fingers around as if he was a fucking fairy and leaving bits of pixie dust everywhere. “Cause that’s what you do with people you love, right?”

Gerard felt pretty bad for Pete. It was obvious that Patrick was the one thing he really cared about and didn’t want to change. It shocked him more that he knew better than to hold Patrick down.  


“I might be an asshole, but a little less of one when it comes to Patrick,” Pete answered.  


“Fuck you,” Gerard hissed, putting his hands over his ears. Of course, on top of everything, Pete could read his mind.  


“Like that’s gonna help you out,” Pete laughed, wrenching his hands underneath Gerard’s and pulling them both away from his head with lightning speed.  


“You didn’t fucking tell me that you could do that,” Gerard spat.  


“So can you,” Pete said. “You just haven’t tried yet. I’ve had some experience, and you were thinking pretty loud, so it wasn’t hard,” said Pete.  


Gerard kind of wanted to see if he could use that new power, but was too frustrated to relax and try it.  


“Not that you could get past this anyway,” Pete said, tapping the side of his head with his finger. “You can do this one day too. Put up a barrier. Other vampires can’t see through it. But some are powerful enough. Most times you can tell when they are,” Pete offered, focusing on his task yet again.  


“I don’t want to do that,” Gerard said, looking over towards the window. The sun was still out, bathing the earth in its light. But it was weakening, and it would disappear soon. Twilight would come, and Gerard would be able to finally go back home, back to being slightly normal. _Who the fuck am I kidding,_ Gerard thought. _Nothing is ever going to be the same again._

“I’m guessing you’re ready to get out of here,” Pete said, putting the last of the groceries away. As soon as Pete finished his sentence, before Gerard could have time to think about his answer, Patrick unlocked his front door and came inside, looking up at Gerard and Pete. 

“Back so soon?” Pete asked, light sarcasm touching his voice.  


“I only wanted a few of these,” Patrick said, setting down a few bottles of prettily packaged glass bottles on the table. Gerard sped over to check them out, not really caring about Patrick seeing his inhuman tactics. Gerard picked up one of the fancy drinks that happened to be colored a deep magenta and observed the label.  
“Kombucha!” Patrick exclaimed, smiling wide.  


“Huh?” Gerard asked, a little confused. He checked out the bottle again, admiring it’s stacked words of ‘reawaken, rebirth, repurpose, redefine’. Huh. Choice words.

  


“Patrick loves that shit. I’m surprised I didn’t notice that he didn’t pick it up,” Pete said, smiling briefly.  


“You bet I do,” Patrick mumbled, plucking the stray bottle of Kombucha out of Gerard’s hand with a little ‘boop’ sound effect and transported them all to the fridge. The bottles were beautiful. Who would have known that Pete would have had a bond with a guy like this? Sweet, organic, and welcoming Patrick compared with moody, sarcastic and stand offish Pete. It didn’t make sense. Then again, Gerard and Frank hardly made sense either. They only had their indescribable bond that drove them both insane, and Pete and Patrick had the luck of being together for so long, getting to know each other better than anyone else in their lives and bound together by something they both needed time to define and understand completely.  


“You good buddy?” Patrick asked Gerard, patting one hand on his shoulder.  


“I’m fine,” Gerard said, his voice almost making no sound at all.  


“We’re going to get going soon, Gerard,” Pete said, making the effort to smooth his hoodie off of his head and nod his now uncovered head towards Gerard.  


“I know,” Gerard answered. He kept staring at the light red Kombucha bottle that Patrick held in his hands that he was currently opening. As soon as he lifted the cap, Gerard hissed and covered his nose, gagging.  


“What’s wrong? The smell? Awh, I’m sorry,” Patrick offered, closing the bottle back up. Gerard didn’t understand. The bottle was beautiful. The smell was horrific. “I’m surprised,” Patrick spoke again.  


“Why?”  


“I thought Pete was just telling me that you weren’t used to everything yet.”  


“Keyword, yet,” Pete said, tapping Patrick on the shoulder. Gerard wanted to know how Pete felt being so close to Patrick and not being able to act on his apparent feelings like he had before… who knows how long ago before.  


“Fuck,” Gerard cursed, speeding off into the guest bedroom that he had been resting in while he heard Patrick’s rich laughter. He just wanted to get out of here and get back home, ease his family’s worries. And ease Frank’s pain. He was beginning to think that Pete was stalling, somehow magically slowing down the sunlight so that it could keep dragging on. Gerard was beginning to feel tired and weak again, and laid down on the bed in front of him, wondering what kinds of guests Patrick had over so that he had this big extra empty room just for them to sleep in. Did Pete regularly use this house at Patrick’s expense to house his odd, poor victims?

Gerard began to wonder just how many people that Pete had turned in his time as a vampire, before this whole going red business started. And Gerard had to be so lucky. He could still hear Patrick and Pete laughing downstairs. Instantly, he assumed it was about him, so he listened just a little closer to get the full story. He wasn’t actually the butt of the joke at the moment. Patrick was lecturing Pete about how much of an asshole he was, which pleased Gerard greatly. 

“You can be such an ass,” Patrick giggled.  


“Big deal, what do you want from me?” Pete laughed. A real, genuine, sweet laugh.  


“Maybe you should work on being nicer,” Patrick suggested playfully, getting up from his chair. Gerard could piece together what was happening next. He could hear Patrick’s soft sigh and Pete’s jacket shifting as he wrapped his arms around Patrick’s body. Gerard turned around in the bed and sighed. He could see the twilight outside fading into the deep purple of night that would soon morph into blue. He could even see the tiny pricks of starlight littering the sky through the shades, his vision was sharper than it ever had been. Now a range of ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘we can’t keep doing this’ echoed down the hall from downstairs. Gerard didn’t want to end up like Pete and Patrick, he wanted to keep his distance from Frank as best as he could while keeping the bond in tip top shape as well. That was going to be extremely difficult, and Gerard wasn’t sure if he could pull it off if he was honest with himself. All he really had to do was keep their relationship in line with friendship only. Gerard always knew that he was curious about guys since he was younger, but had never _ever_ had the chance to explore it, because he might have very well gotten killed when he was in school. He couldn’t even imagine even secretly coming out to the people he trusted a bit. He was bullied and teased enough to last a lifetime. Even though he felt extremely close to Frank, he couldn’t stand the thought of throwing even more complexity into his life right now. His life had been changed forever now, and he was even at a higher risk of dying if he thought about it logically. It was obvious that he would have to calculate his every move, more so than he ever needed to before when he was still human. He was even going to put Frank in more danger if they took things further than they ever needed to go in the first place. The bond was obviously something very, very important and strong. They couldn’t afford to break it on either end. He had heard Pete. The consequences of staying apart were worse than the ones of staying together and dealing with the crazy array of emotions that came along with it.

Gerard figured that he had plenty of time to deal with and think about that later. What was important now was getting back to his fucking house, if Pete would ever man the fuck up and take him there now that it was dark. Gerard figured that the understood that Pete was currently hurting too, but it wasn’t really _anything_ at all compared to what was happening to Gerard right now with his fucking life. If Pete wanted this to work out, he had to take the right damn steps and start by getting Gerard back home.  
A sudden chill ran all the way up Gerard’s spine. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he began to shake.

His throat felt like someone had drowned it in gasoline and threw a thousand matches to it. Hot burning. Need. Want. Lust, desire, strength, power.  
A goal. A single goal that was made of delicious ruby.  
The reaction didn't really shake Gerard anymore. Sure, deep down he was still freaked out and scared by it, but the blood lust was getting stronger and stronger each time it hit. The first time he had experienced it, it had mainly just been his throat burning and an intense thirsty feeling. The need to be quenched was still there, of course, but a new rainbow of feelings had just combusted inside of Gerard and it… felt like-

He shot up from the bed, almost ripping the blankets apart, and sped downstairs faster than he even sped up before. It was in a blink of an eye. He caught Pete opening the fridge just in time.  


“There you are, like clockwork,” Pete said, about to toss a fresh bag of blood towards Gerard. Gerard beat him to it. He snatched it lightning quick from Pete’s hands, ripping it open and catching and sucking up every drop before it could even have time to stain his hands pink and maroon, much less hit Patrick’s hardwood kitchen floor. He heard Pete backing up before he tossed another bag to him, which Gerard lunged for in midair. Nothing else mattered in the moment.  


“Gerard, I’m telling you right now, you have to focus. You’re liking this a little too much. This is coming from someone like me, who’s already a little red myself,” Pete warned, his voice louder and firm. “Gerard, tell me, right now. Are you listening to what I’m telling you?”  


“Yes,” Gerard said, his voice muffled, gurgling a bit. Pete twitched.  


“I don’t think that you are. I’m gonna ask you one more time. Are you focusing? Are you even taking in what I’m saying?”  


“You don’t have to treat me like fucking kid,” Gerard hissed, looking up from the shredded plastic bags in his hands, as if they were mangled corpses of animals. “I’m hearing what you’re fucking saying.”  


“I guess you can say that. But you’re not taking it _in, Gerard!_ Do you want to end up like me? Do you want to hurt everyone like this?” Pete yelled, slapping Gerard across the face. Gerard bit Pete’s hand, growling. Pete kicked Gerard down to the ground, slapping a hissing and growling Gerard upside the head yet again.  


“Gerard Way! Cut this shit out, right now! You’re better than this! You can’t afford this bullshit! Remember everyone, remember Frank!” Pete yelled frantically. Gerard viciously squirmed and thrashed around as Pete continued to hold him down. He was an animal, just as Pete had resembled only hours earlier. Pete forced Gerard to look into his eyes by taking a risk and grabbing Gerard’s chin, throwing his face only centimeters from Gerard’s. Gerard could feel a strange sense of calm and distance begin to leak into his brain, into his senses. Something different was happening that he wasn’t experiencing before. He mumbled, his shoulders relaxing after being wound up into a tight ball. He started to hear Pete’s voice, shouting a single word of ‘hey’ over and over, he could now register strands of Pete’s pitch black hair resting on his eyelids and the high part of his cheek, he could now understand looking into Pete’s dark eyes. 

He sat up, not fighting against Pete, but giving up in a silent surrender. Pete backed up off of him without a word, letting Gerard rest his head in his hands. Soon, his palms shifted to cover his eyes. Gerard began to cry. He wasn’t sobbing, or weeping even. The only way Pete could see that Gerard was crying was that the clear drops dropped down to Patrick’s kitchen floor, one by one, as if they had lined up in a single file and each dropped to their deaths once it was their turn to do so.  


“Dude, I’m sorry,” Pete offered. Gerard could just sense that Pete was trying to be ‘careful’. He didn’t want to move too fast, or too slow. He wanted to keep talking to Gerard, but only at a steady pace that wouldn’t stress him out. “Look, before you start thinking too much, or start thinking that there’s something that’s wrong with you, there isn’t. This is normal. You’re not the first person I’ve had to snap out of it. It’s normal when you’re new to the whole blood lust thing. You can learn to control it – you will be able to learn to control it, Gerard. It’s gonna be ok. You have to believe me when I tell you this.”  


“How can I do that when you’re about to lose _yourself?_ ” Gerard asked, his voice only a little bit cracked from the tears.  


“It’s not gonna last forever, I promise you,” Pete said, ignoring the question at first. He was slow to reach out and pet Gerard’s shoulder. “And I’m trying to teach you how to prevent this,” Pete finally said. Gerard swore that he could feel Pete wanting to roll his eyes, but knew that he didn’t. Gerard removed his hands from his face, wiping his slightly damp hands onto his pants. He happened to look at a reflection of himself in the hallway mirror once he stood up, and flinched a bit. His face had been dyed all shades of maroon and pink.  


“You can go ahead and get yourself washed up before we leave,” Pete offered. What else could Gerard do? Refuse? No, he needed some simple shred of humanity to cling on to right now, even if it was just a simple thing as washing up.  


At least Pete was giving him the chance to see his home again, and right now, that was all that Gerard could ask for, when everything was falling apart around him.


	5. Headfirst for Halos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh - thanks so much for being patient with me, guys! Here we are with another chapter, finally! It's just a touch shorter than 5k, but I was a little impatient to get this one out. Also, cue the introduction of an OC! Comments, kudos, and critiques fuel my will to live!!!!

Gerard splashed water all over his face, watching Patrick’s poor white sink get stained with a rainbow of deep maroon and pink as he washed up, complying with Pete’s suggestion that he get cleaned up before he finally headed home. He looked up in the mirror, seeing his extremely pale face. He was changing. His entire body was changing since he had turned. He took the time to notice that his cheeks were a little more hollowed as if he had a few blows with meth like the druggies who lived under the bridges. He was always a pale kid, given that he lived in cloud fucked New Jersey and almost never left the house. But now he was nearing a shade of paper white that creeped him out a little.  
The sun was setting outside, as Gerard could see from the shaded window behind him. What little, dying sunlight was leaking through the shaded window irritated Gerard a little, it made his head ache just a bit and his skin feel a tad itchy. He wished that he had some other clothes to change into. He missed that fresh clothes feeling. He felt like he was caked in an invisible layer of old sweat and dust, and it made him feel gross. He wondered if Pete would let him use Patrick’s shower. 

“No,” Pete called from upstairs.

Damn it.

“Fine,” Gerard answered out loud. Fuck Pete for randomly listening in on him and his thoughts when he least suspected it, especially when he was weak like this. It wasn’t fair that Pete could play god without teaching Gerard how to put up a barrier to conceal his thoughts just like Pete could do. Gerard wanted to feel more pissed off about it, but couldn’t waste what little emotional energy he had to spare tonight. 

Tossing his hand through his black greasy hair one more time, cocking his head to the side and widening his eyes a bit to observe himself one last time in the mirror, Gerard set off downstairs. Pete was waiting for him, drinking one of the red bottles of Kombucha. Upon being reminded about Patrick, Gerard wondered out loud where Patrick was again.  
“Out,” Was all Pete answered. Gerard had no choice but to accept it and not argue with Pete any further. They had come close to killing each other too many times in the past twenty four hours. That didn’t stop him from rolling his eyes behind Pete, though, regardless if Pete knew he was doing it or not. 

They set out once the sun had surrendered to the night, giving way to the moon that had already been hanging high in the sky. It was waning, and the moon had only been a curved sliver in the inky sky. It was framed beautifully by the stars, which were more than fewer now that Gerard and Pete were further away from the city. Gerard looked towards Pete, who had pulled up his hoodie over his face yet again, resembling his look on the bus on that fateful day. 

They were walking along the roadside. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Gerard spoke up with a cautious question. 

“Pete, uh, how are we getting there?” 

“Like this,” Pete answered, giggling a bit after sipping on his bottle of Kombucha. “Not a fan of walking, I’m guessing?” 

“Ugh,” Gerard spat, clenching his eyes shut and grumbling. “I’m not… athletic and shit.”

“Try speeding around and tell me that again. You better wait before you do that, though. You’re gonna get lost if you don’t know where you’re going.”

“I’m not gonna get lost. I live here, you asshole,” Gerard grumbled.

“Yeah, but you were busy telling me how you don’t go out and shit. And I should know, because I’ve watched you all this time, in case someone I know forgot about that little detail,” Pete snickered. Gerard unclenched his body that was more than ready to speed away from Pete and into his familiar home. 

“So, yeah. We’re gonna walk up until… some point, and then we can actually speed up and get going?”

“You have to wait until I tell you,” Pete stated, still steadily sipping from his ruby bottle of Kombucha. 

“I don’t know how you can stand that shit,” Gerard said, kicking a pebble further into the path in front of him. 

“What? The Kombucha? Or the not speeding and getting places?”

“I guess I could say both, but I’m talking about the Kombucha at the moment,” Gerard sighed. He was waiting for Pete to make fun of him for breathing yet again. Thankfully, he didn’t. 

“I’ll give that to you, dude. It is pretty strong and overpowering. But I love the taste, and it reminds me of Patrick. Plus, even though I’m pretty much done for, Patrick still wants me to take in all these…. antioxidants and shit. Swears by it, so I give him the benefit of the doubt for his sake. It’s the least I can do.”

“…Literally only you would find a nice, deep meaning for fucking Kombucha,” Gerard laughed, shaking his head and even smiling a little bit.

“Why don’t you walk the walk and tell me that you wouldn’t do the same exact thing for Frank, given the chance?”

“Uh, that would depend on what it was,” Gerard said. His chest knew he was lying. That sinking feeling told all.

“Sure it does, dude,” Pete said, chugging more of the stinky Kombucha. “You think that I would drink this shit if I had a choice?”

“You do have a choice,” Gerard said, stepping over a stray branch in the road.

“You know what I’m fucking talking about,” Pete said. 

As Gerard got to know Pete a little more, it was very apparent that he was more emotional than he liked to lead people to believe. Patrick definitely brought that aspect of Pete out of himself. Just as Frank would do for Gerard, no doubt - breaking down his crumbling walls, testing everything, knowing everything.

“Are you usually like that… with Patrick?”

“Yeah.” Pete said, sounding tired. 

“But more importantly, when are you going to teach me to do that mind reading shit?”

“In time,” Pete said. He chugged down the last of the Kombucha and tossed the beautifully packaged bottle out into the bushes. “You kind of have to try it on your own, too. It’s almost always a matter of teaching yourself.”

“You sound like a middle aged mom, saying that,” Gerard laughed, shoving Pete’s shoulder a bit while the sounds of their voices bounced off of the asphalt below them both. Their footsteps aligned. 

“Not my fault you hang around a middle aged mom who just might have one,” Pete joked, arching his eyebrows up and down like a creep would.

“Oh, fuck you, that’s disgusting,” Gerard laughed, fake gagging. 

“Not as bad as the Kombucha,” Pete laughed. “The things I do for that kid.”

“That sounds a little creepy when you say it like that.”

“Lay the fuck off. You’ll be saying that soon enough, yeah?”

Gerard didn’t really want to spend too much time thinking about that. He wasn’t sure what it was going to be like trying to downplay his never aging body in the coming years, if he would even survive that long (Pete had a talent for making things seem bleak). 

“When did you meet Patrick?”

“Long story. Let’s focus on getting to the main road here in a sec.”

“Can’t you just speed up, and let me follow you?”

“Too dangerous. And you wouldn’t be able to keep up with me,” Pete answered, wiping the corners of his mouth with his jacket sleeve. 

“I would,” Gerard countered, stepping in front of Pete and walking backwards to face him directly. “I think you’re not giving me enough credit.”

“I’m giving you plenty of credit. You’re lucky that I’m letting you speed at all once we get closer. What, you think kids your age aren’t out at this time of night? The last thing we need is to hype up vampires more now that people still think you’re missing,” Pete scoffed. 

“I guess you’re right.”

“I know I am. You know, being a hundred years old really puts some wisdom into you.”

“Nobody said that you had to be a smart ass right now,” Gerard stated, kicking another small pebble out of his way. 

“But I like it,” Pete feigned innocence with the tone of his voice. 

As soon as Gerard knew where he was, he turned at a sharp angle to face Pete, asking silently to go ahead and speed up. He watched for his lips to form words that would soon give him the signal to accelerate into lightning fast speeds. Pete kept silent as they kept walking along the side of the road, only a couple of cars passing them by.

“Uh? Hello?” Gerard asked, cocking his head to the side and waving his hand at Pete. He could feel excitement boiling up in his insides, making him feel a little bit warm. Being thirsty set him on painful fire. This feeling was more human than he’d felt ever since Pete attacked him while he was trying to stay safe at art school.

“What?” Pete asked, looking up at Gerard once he put his hands in his pockets. Gerard knew that he was playing dumb. That he just wanted to stall this longer so he could keep both of them safe for the time being.

“You know what I’m trying to get at, dude,” Gerard insisted. “I know where I am now. I can go ahead and speed over there right now, and I’m not sure that you can stop me,” He said confidently.

“Not sure? That definitely means that you know I’m gonna catch up with you,” Pete laughed, shaking his head. His hoodie that was just merely framing the sides of his face before were now starting to cover up his face again from the angle Gerard was facing him at.   
“I know that. But I still need to get home, if you like it or not.”

“I thought you wanted to live long enough to get back to your family and to Frank, Gerard,” Pete said, his voice a little grim. Gerard didn’t have time for Pete’s bullshit right now. He needed to hurry up and get home, set his family’s worries at ease and let them know that yes, he was alive (not really well) and that he was finally home safe. He had made it, through some form of a miracle he had made it, and he needed to prove it to his brother and his frazzled mom, as much as he had disliked being stuck there for so many years. He needed to do this, and it hurt that Pete was still trying to keep Gerard from this shred of happiness.

“I do. Please. We keep getting closer, and I know where I am. Can’t you just let me go?”

“Calm down, Gerard. You know why. I have to keep you around, or else we’ll both be screwed. My time is limited. My days are fucking numbered here, dude. In all seriousness. You really need to start understanding that. Believe it or not, there are people around here who do not like vampires, and want every last one of them dead. I’m sure you know that. Wait for me to tell you when to go. I’m gonna keep you safe. I will get you to your family, if you believe me or not.”

Pete had said his piece. Gerard had let it sink in, altogether too tired to argue with Pete right now. He could kind sense that Pete was getting tired emotionally as well. Being around Patrick like that certainly didn’t make things easier on him. 

“I’ll shut up now,” Gerard said, rolling his eyes and sighing.

“It’ll be easier if you do,” Pete said, a little bit of regret staining his voice. Gerard wondered if Pete didn’t really like being this harsh to him right now. Not that it was harsh per say, but an uncomfortable way of speaking. Especially for how they were just joking around earlier. 

They were now wandering into an intersection that Gerard knew like the back of his hand.

“Dude. I literally know exactly where I am now…” Gerard said before he let his words fade from his throat. He started off strong, but then he just gave up. He was beyond sure that Pete would just reject him again. 

“Do you? Lead the way,” Pete said, shrugging his shoulders.

Shock wanted to run up Gerard’s spine like a chill, but Gerard’s happiness overrode that feeling by a mile. He faced the direction he needed to go, and sped away with Pete in tow. He knew that Pete wasn’t going as fast as he normally would so he could keep up with Gerard. Gerard didn’t have time to feel offended because of it. He was finally going home. He may still be stuck with Pete for a while, but he was still finally returning home for the first time since his life changed forever. 

-

There was no way in hell that Frank was going to sleep tonight. 

He was going through the overwhelming feeling that he only felt when he was near Gerard, a feeling that he had been desperate for ever since Gerard went missing. The vibe in the air was different, unsettled, and more urgent than it had been ever since Gerard disappeared. Some crazy part of him hoped beyond hope that maybe Gerard was coming back, perhaps he was already back here in Belleville (right, in the middle of the night). He shook his head, extremely annoyed with himself. 

He tossed around in his bed, flicking his light on. He stared at his window, as if he was hoping to find some crazy answer there. He kept staring at the black emptiness, and sure enough he didn’t see any such answer. What was he expecting, perfection in a ratty gray hoodie to show up in his window?

Fuck. There he was.

_Gerard._

Leaping up from his bed and screaming a little, Frank lunged towards his window, scrambling to open it up and seize the prize that was Gerard. The search was over now, if only Frank could catch Gerard in his hands as if he was some stunning butterfly that was needed for the finest winged creature collection on this whole earth. He needed to get to Gerard, but now the only thing that was within Frank’s reach was the old, dead bush that sat directly below his window, and the icy night air of New Jersey stinging his face like a thousand little needles. Frank cursed out loud before jumping out of his window, not even caring if his family would wake up and try to stop him. He didn’t even care about any of that right now. He had devoted everything in him to find Gerard, and he would be damned sure to find out if he was just hallucinating or not. He ran, the only thing covering his feet his thin grey socks. Brittle, dry grass and brambles on the ground below tried to take a few stabs at his feet, but it didn’t slow Frank down in the slightest. Of course, they hurt like a bitch, but nothing would hurt more right now then to let Gerard get away from him. 

He looked up ahead at the intersection, and saw Gerard standing near the stoplight with another figure, a guy, that happened to be wearing a red hoodie that covered most of his face. Before Frank had enough time to study the details, he thought he heard them talking in hushed voices before…. they sped away, vanishing right before Frank’s eyes. Frank wanted to drop to the ground and scream and kick and throw a fit. He slapped himself to make sure he wasn’t just dreaming. No, he wasn’t dreaming. That slap hurt like a fucking bitch. Unable to think of what else to possibly do, he screamed out for Gerard. 

“Gerard?” Frank yelled, his voice cracking from being unused for a few hours combined with raw desperation. He didn’t get a response at first. He knew Gerard had been near him, he had felt it. Sure, he might have looked like a raving idiot just running around and screaming in the middle of the fucking intersection for Gerard, but he didn’t care at this point. Not when he had been missing for so long, and he was literally right in front of Frank what seemed to be just moments ago. The Sensitive ran past an alleyway, and paused when he heard voices hissing from inside it. He turned, eyes widening when he saw the two figures thrashing around on the floor. He swore that he could see tiny, glowing, red dots hovering over what seemed to be Gerard. Frank couldn’t help himself, he ran into the alleyway, his half on converse slapping against the concrete and crushing stray pieces of glass from broken bottles. The two figures froze, and Frank was almost ready to give in to the fact that they were surely going to run away from him again.

“No,” Gerard’s voice rasped from the ground. 

“What?!” Frank asked, his voice frantic and high strung. That was not what he had planned on finally saying upon tracking down Gerard. Frank froze as the figure who was just hovering above Gerard came creeping towards him. Very, very slowly. Frank had no idea what he was dealing with, but his drive kept forcing him to move towards Gerard and finally bring him back home. Blatantly ignoring the looming, odd threat in front of him, Frank swore that he could dodge its efforts and swing over towards Gerard to drag him up off of the ground. Frank forced himself to move towards Gerard.

He forgot just how fast he had seen both of them moving just a bit ago. He forgot that these were the same… persons. He forgot that maybe, just maybe, they could still do that. 

At least one of them could.

That at least one of them had intentions to do just that.

One of them that wasn’t currently frozen on the ground.

Frank shed a small tear of joyous victory as he reached out to grab Gerard’s sleeve, his finger only millimeters away from touching the dirty fabric. He was inhaling one, sharp breath. He only wondered for a split second why Gerard wasn’t moving, but calling out to Frank to get away from here-

Only for one second did Frank have time to wonder about Gerard’s choice of words. The other moment brought physical pain unlike he had ever known before. 

Two razor sharp tips pierced his shoulder. What felt like claws grabbed onto his chest and his sides, gouging him and slamming him down onto the ground near where Gerard lay screaming. Frank soon couldn’t tell apart his own screams from Gerard’s. All that thundered across his senses, even stronger than the thrill of finally finding Gerard, was pain. Excruciating, all consuming pain that ripped up his insides and set them on fire. The blood leaving his body felt like hot oil spilling all over his skin. He tried so hard to lift his hands and wrench off the thing that was attacking him, but the pain constricted his every movement, like hot ropes that were twisting around and burning his deepening wounds. He kept screaming out for help as the creature’s face kept digging into his flesh, growling and even moaning softly. He started to cry from the sheer terror and pain, from wishing so badly to be able to throw this thing off of him, and to have Gerard tell him what was fucking happening to him - to save him from his nightmare, that had haunted him all this time, finally come to life.

-

The Vampire Queen sat at an angle across from her favorite spot in her underground castle, near her roaring fireplace. She adjusted the pure snow white fox fur that draped across her neck. The fire before her crackled, relaxing her a bit. She wasn’t an idiot. She had enough sense to know that Peter’s time was, essentially, up. She didn’t spend so much intimate time with him to not sink her fingers into him as far as they could go. He had fought against going Red for so long, he was practically on fire. And now she could sense that he was finally slipping away.   
She fluffed up her apple red hair that had been styled expertly by her favorite hairdresser and nuzzled the soft fur of the fox pelt that lay around her neck briefly before snapping her fingers to call for one of her many servants. 

“Yes?” A voice answered her. She let her lips spread in a tiny smile. 

“Bring me my wine, would you?”

“But my lady, you only order such a thing when-”

“Yes, yes, I know. I thought you knew better than to question me.”

“Just looking out for your wellbeing, my lady,” The servant said. 

“You act as if I’m not well enough to fend for myself, let alone make my own decisions on these matters,” Esmé muttered, snapping her fingers yet again. The servant said nothing, only bowed, and walked away to retrieve her wine. Esmé smiled, finally pleased. She watched the flames flicker in the fireplace as her servant returned with her wine of choice. It was spiked with a little fresh blood, completely hidden in the deep, rich burgundy that was inside the glass. She sipped on it with grace. She would admit to anyone that she used to be in the business of chugging booze like there was no tomorrow, but she preferred to carry at least a shred of dignity nowadays. What else could one expect from the Vampire Queen that had now reigned for several centuries?

She wished that her servant hadn’t mentioned what she was about to do. She didn’t like going out much. But this was a special case, despite her living many years and having seen many different things happening with vampires. Pete was a special case. Not really because she had feelings, no. She couldn’t afford to keep feelings about certain vampires around for very long, considering their, compared to hers, short life span. Pete was even more an abnormal case now that he had snapped, gone under and went after one of his victim’s bonds. That was not going to be in her dictionary of acceptance any time soon. But she wasn’t going to kill him, she wasn’t going to bring out her pitch black stake that she kept under lock and key for purposes of execution. No. She would go to Belleville, New Jersey herself and bring Pete back with her. He was going to end his days with her, as her own vicious little underling, and there was nothing that Pete could do to stop it. It is what she willed. It was what would be. What right did he have to oppose the Vampire Queen?

She still casually nursed her wine - of course she had to be a little buzzed for the encounter. She couldn’t just leave the poor little fledgling of Pete’s with a mangled bond mate. She would help out a little with that too. Pete’s fledgling would be just fine on his own. She would be making sure that things went her way. As usual. She finished her blood enhanced wine and set it back on the gold tinted plate that the servant had left by her side and stood up, adjusting her thin dress. She turned her back on her lovely fireplace and extended out one arm. She waited patiently. Every single one of her servants knew what this meant. The blade slipped into her hand as gracefully as the wind would blow, her servant silently walking away afterwards. She lifted up the silver blade, the light from the fireplace glittering and reflecting against it, and grabbed the end of her dress, jerking it to the side and sinking the blade into its cotton flesh, slashing it and letting the excess fabric flutter to the ground. She angled herself towards the mirror and admired her rugged look. She also liked how the light from her fireplace bounced off of her figure, making her look even more voluptuous than she already was. Her boots were exposed in their full form now, no longer hiding behind the curtain of her dress. She didn’t mourn the former state of her dress for long - she needed to be able to move around quicker if she was going to track down Pete and bring him back home. 

She walked out into the hallway, her servants that were loitering around rushing over to the sides to make room for their liege. 

“Everyone, I need you to start securing the entrances and the dungeons! I’m bringing back a Red vampire that will be needing security as his life ends here. Go now, and open the gates for me! I need you to work your magic on the stray humans,” Esmé smirked. “And pray that my new vampire lives long,” she muttered as she ascended the staircase up to the earth that awaited her.


End file.
